ESTROGEN CREAM

Report #6929

Topical estrogen cream is effective for preventing thinning of the skin, wrinkling and spotting on the faces of postmenopausal women (1,2,3,4).

All women suffer a progressive thinning of bones and skin after the menopause. As a result, they develop weak bones and thin skin. Estrogen pills reduce bone loss significantly, but they do not halt the 8.6% reduction in skin thickness that occurs every 10 years after the menopause. On the other hand, doctors have known for more than 50 years that lack of estrogen at the time of the menopause often causes a woman's vagina to become dry and thin and that vaginal creams containing estrogen help prevent this. Doctors asked postmenopausal women to apply readily available/ commercial/ vaginal estrogen creams to their faces three times a week. After 6 months, their faces had less wrinkling, fewer dark spots and a more youthful appearance. Doctors know that estrogen pills can cause uterine cancer unless postmenopausal women are also given progesterone. Therefore, they usually give progesterone with estrogen pills to women who have not had a hysterectomy. However, studies show that after 6 months of applying estrogen creams to the face three times a week, there were no precancerous changes in the uterus, no rise in blood levels of estrogen and no change in the brain hormones that control estrogen production. Since vaginal creams are thick and greasy, your doctor can write a prescription for your pharmacist to make a more elegant cream by adding 18.75 mg of Premarin powder to one ounce of facial cream. or writing a prescription for 0.01% estradiol in any facial cream.

By Gabe Mirkin, M.D., for CBS Radio News