Answer to Question 1
(answers can vary)
Medical thinking on hormone therapy (HT), long believed to prevent heart disease and stroke and help women live longer, has changed, particularly related to the combination of estrogen and progestin. Based on the Women's Health Initiative (WHI)a series of clinical trials begun in 1991 on postmenopausal womenHT now is recommended for fewer than five years as a reasonable option for the relief of moderate to severe symptoms such as hot flashes.
As various studies have confirmed, longer-term combination therapy increases the risk of breast cancer, heart disease, blood clots, and stroke. In the latest analysis of the WHI data, the risks to women who took estrogen-only therapy faded after they stopped their treatment.
Middle-aged women who take hormone therapy are not at increased risk of heart attack, memory loss, or dementia years down the road, according to a new study. Earlier research had raised alarms that hormone therapy might increase the risk of these health problems. Many of the women in these studies were older than 65 and had started taking hormones 20 years past menopause. Younger women taking replacement hormones did face a slightly elevated risk of breast cancer.
Answer to Question 2
The question is intensely controversial. Advocates of the right to self-deliverance argue that individuals in great pain or faced with the prospect of a debilitating, hopeless battle against an incurable disease can and should be able to decide to end their lives. As legislatures and the legal system tackle the thorny questions of an individual's right to die, mental health professionals worry that, even in those with fatal diseases, suicidal wishes often stem from undiagnosed depression.
Because depression may indeed warp the ability to make a rational decision about suicide, mental health professionals urge physicians and family members to make sure individuals with chronic or fatal illnesses are evaluated for depression and given medication, psychotherapy, or both. It is also important for everyone to allow enough timean average of three to eight weeksto see if treatment for depression will make a difference in their desire to keep living.
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