Menopausal symptoms: comparative effectiveness of therapies

This is a huge manuscript, which summarises vast amounts of information, actually being a small text-booklet on hormonal and non-hormonal menopause therapies. Being an official document of the NIH, it is interesting to read the following conclusions. 
Comment from Dr Amos Pines


Women experiencing symptoms of menopause can consider a number of potential treatments of varying efficacy.

From a large body of evidence, there is considerable certainty that estrogens are the most effective treatment for relieving vasomotor symptoms and are accompanied by the greatest improvement in quality-of-life measures.

For other common symptoms – psychological, urogenital, and sleep disturbance – although estrogens are effective, some non-hormonal agents compare favorably.

Estrogens are accompanied by potential long-term harms that require consideration.

There is limited evidence on the potential consequences of long-term use of non-hormonal agents when those agents are used to treat menopausal symptoms.

Reference

Grant MD, Marbella A, Wang AT, et al. Menopausal symptoms: comparative effectiveness of therapies [Internet]. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2015 Mar. (free for downloading from PubMed) 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25905155

Content updated 4 June 2015

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