Hormone therapy may damage hearing

[Kate Thomas]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14680761/

Older women taking certain hormone replacement therapy may suffer hearing damage, scientists report.

A study of 124 postmenopausal women found that those taking hormone replacement therapy that included progestin had poorer speech understanding than women who were not taking hormones or who were using estrogen only.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14789510/site/newsweek/

as a group, women have better hearing all through their lives than men. That's not just true among human beings—female mammals in general tend to have better hearing than their male counterparts. Why would that be? For years, scientists speculated that hormones might have something to do with it. But now comes surprising evidence that one of the hormones women naturally produce—progesterone—seems to have a negative effect on hearing. More specifically, menopausal women taking combined hormone therapy (estrogen and progestin, a synthetic version of progesterone) were found to have significantly worse hearing than women taking estrogen alone or no hormones at all.

[LostInTime]

Related news posting here.