Some biochemical consequences of post-menopausal hormone replacement treatment

Abstract

In 1976 during the First International Congress on the Menopause, I (Larsson-Cohn) had the pleasure of chairing a workshop with a title similar to that of the present one. On that occasion it became clear that until the mid-seventies very little investigative work had been done on the metabolic consequences of post-menopausal hormone replacement therapy. Some studies had been performed in connection with the effects of combined oral contraceptive agents, but it was difficult to extrapolate from these the effects of oestrogens per se, and those of progestogens. The problem was further complicated by the fact that at that time it was not unusual for authors to state merely that the women in their studies had been taking ‘oral contraceptives’, without specifying the composition of the preparations taken. In other instances the results from subjects taking different oral contraceptive agents were pooled.