Beneficial aspect of oral estriol as hormone replacement therapy: consideration on bone and lipid metabolism.

To improve the quality of life of elderly people in Japanese society where women have the longest life expectancy in the world, osteoporosis, and hyperlipidemia are among the major targets of medical treatment. To differentiate two types of regimens for hormone replacement therapy (HRT), we tried to evaluate the efficacy on lipid and bone metabolism. With informed consent, 34 postmenopausal women of more than 2 years were assigned to receive 1 of 2 types of HRT (the HRT group) for 12 months observation: one with a combination of conjugated equine estrogen (CEE) 0.625 mg/day and medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) 2.5 mg/day (the CEE group), and the other with oral estriol (E3) 2 mg/day (the E3 group). Parameters of serum lipid were measured, as well as those of bone metabolism with bone mineral density (BMD) by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) using QDR-2000. In HRT groups, lipid and bone metabolism were confirmed to be improved. Whereas, an increase of triglycerides (TG) observed in the CEE group was not observed in the E3 group. Thus, in the clinical management of postmenopausal women, oral E3 preparation as an alternative regimen for HRT for CEE might be efficacious.