By DEANNA WULFF
Although she reports that there is nothing "wrong" with her, Joan Gordon has committed to taking hormones or placebos for the next 10 years of her life.
The 54-year-old woman says she has no mental or physical troubles and has lived comfortably in Sunnyvale for 25 years. But her 53-year-old sister has breast cancer.
To help her sister, Gordon volunteered to participate in the first federally funded test on women's hormone-replacement therapy.
"Somebody has to do it. For women of a certain age, there are a lot of unanswered questions," she said. "I think it would be good for my sisters and myself."
She said she will help her two younger sisters, ages 39 and 33, decide whether to take hormones when they reach menopause.
Gordon and 176 other women from Sunnyvale are being screened for the Women's Health Initiative, a National Institute of Health study. The $628 million, 15-year project involves more than 160,000 women, making it the largest clinical trial in the United States.
The study is an attempt to redress inequities in women's health research and provide practical information for women and their physicians about hormone-replacement therapy, dietary patterns, calcium and vitamin D supplements, and heart disease, said Kathy Riggs, Stanford Clinic coordinator.
According to principal investigator Marcia Stefanick, the study focuses on the effects of diet and hormones on heart disease, the number-one killer of women in the United States. The study places some women on hormone therapy, some on a low-fat diet, some on both and some on neither.
To be eligible for the hormone-replacement study, women must be post-menopausal, between the ages of 50 and 79, and have no medical reason why they should or should not receive hormone-replacement therapy. To be eligible for the dietary-modification study, women must be post-menopausal, between the ages of 50 and 79, and have no known medical reason why they should not follow a low-fat, high-grain, fruit and vegetable diet.
Gordon is eligible for both.
In mid-January, Gordon has a second appointment at a San Jose clinic. "So far, I am taking a placebo, but I will take a new pill, either estrogen or not," she said. "They will give me a food diary also."
The hormone prescribed is Premarin, a progesterone-estrogen hormone derived from pregnant horses. It is being provided at no cost to researchers by the pharmaceutical company Wyeth-Ayrest.
"Previous studies on hormone-replacement therapy have been conducted by pharmaceutical companies, studying the pros and cons of taking estrogen," Stefanick said. "But women's hormone replacement and heart disease has never been studied in a randomized controlled study. The other studies have been based on observation, which may affect the accuracy of the results."
The local chapter of the Women's Health Initiative, located at a San Jose clinic and the Stanford Institute in Palo Alto, needs 4,000 more volunteers. Five hundred women have joined so far.
"It is challenging to recruit women to participate," Stefanick said. "Physicians are eager to prescribe hormones to women, so many are already on them--and the ones who aren't are still resistant to [the idea]."
Volunteers may receive free hormones, mammograms and dietary counseling. Individuals interested in participating can call the hotline at 944-9444.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 3, 1996
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.