Do Commonly Used Botanical Therapies Really Work for Hot Flashes?
A recent pair of studies has concluded that Black Cohosh and Red Clover (shown in photo), commonly used by women to alleviate hot flashes, are safe to take — that is, they don’t have a negative impact on breast and uterine health. That’s the good news. The bad news? Neither botanical treatment worked as well as a placebo in reducing the number of hot flashes and night sweats that the research participants experienced daily over a 12 month period. What did work was the hormone therapy used in the study – in this case Prempro, a conjugated hormone product made by Wyeth.
A second study evaluated the effect that Black Cohosh, Red Clover and Prempro has on a woman’s cognitive abilities. Again, “none of the botanicals had either a beneficial or a detrimental effect on memory.” However, “the specific hormone therapy used in the trial, Prempro, had a slight negative impact on memory.”
So, the researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago concluded that “only hormone therapy had a beneficial effect on vasomotor symptoms, but this benefit was at a cost of a slight decrease in memory.”
You can listen to an explanation of the study’s findings here.
So many times I see studies mentioned with just the highlights of the results. What they don’t tell you is what formulation of the product was used, what dosage was taken, and what the women did (or did not) have in common. Women with undiagnosed low thyroid will probably have different results than women with healthy thyroids. Diet also has an impact, as does what you weigh, or if you exercise. If these and many other factors are not taken into account, I don’t see how the study can be very meaningful.
I agree completely with you! You don’t need a study to make a decision on whether to take a botanical supplement. Try it and see for yourself it if works. There are enough women, including myself, who have found relief with these herbs.
That is HIGHLY LIKELY that a drug company paid for the study. Sorry!
I take a formulation that contains those herbs. I started skeptically, but the stuff does work for relieving my night sweats. It is quite possible that herbs being so gentle only work for mild cases. Who knows? I don’t trust studies, because I doubt it that any herb company has money to pay for the study. If a drug company paid for it, which is highly unlikely, then the study should be thrown in the garbage.
Herbs are cheap enough for us to run our OWN control studies. There is no harm in trying to see if it works for us or not. Who needs a pompous study?
Sheila – According to the report I read, the study was conducted by the Univ. of Illinois, Chicago(UIC)/NIH Botanical Center. The center is supported by a grant from the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, UIC and the UIC College of Pharmacy. Additional support for the clinical trial came from the Naturex, Inc. of Hackensack, NJ and Pharmavite LLC of Mission Hills. The co-authors of both studies mentioned come from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and UIC.
I would be very interested in who funded this study. I just finished reading a book entitled Mad in America. Though on a completely different subject, the author talks about how the clinical trails are manipulated by the drug companies. In cases where natural alternatives are concerned, remember Wyeth lost 2.2 billion dollars and 67% of their business on their HRT products premarin and prempro when the women’s initiative study came out in 2002. These companies are in business for profit not for the best interest of woman. They will do whatever they can to bring negative press to any and all alternatives because they will affect their bottom line.
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