{"id":728580,"date":"2026-06-27T05:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T05:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/728580\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T05:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T05:07:13","slug":"how-some-men-could-benefit-from-estrogen-patches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/728580\/","title":{"rendered":"How some men could benefit from estrogen patches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pass the patch. <\/p>\n

The US is in the middle of an estrogen patch shortage, with menopausal women struggling to get ahold of hormone therapy to stave off their symptoms \u2014 and experts don\u2019t think the problem\u2019s likely to resolve any time soon.<\/p>\n

But a study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine<\/a> found that a surprising cohort of men could benefit from the treatment, too.<\/p>\n

\"ARecent research suggests estrogen patches are equally effective at treating prostate cancer as other therapies. Shutterstock \/ Andrey_Popov<\/p>\n

Researchers sought to test the efficacy of transdermal estradiol, a k a estrogen patches, in treating patients with prostate cancer<\/a>, the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the walnut-shaped gland below the bladder.<\/p>\n

Experts estimate <\/a>that 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and about 3% of men will die from it.<\/p>\n

It is the most common cancer in US men, excluding skin cancer, and the second-leading cause of male cancer deaths, after lung cancer.<\/p>\n

In the new study, prostate cancer patients were given one of two treatments: tE2 estrogen patches or luteinizing hormone\u2013releasing hormone antagonists, a type of drug that decreases the amount of testosterone produced by the testicles.<\/p>\n

As a treatment, estrogen patch users were just slightly better off. Their three-year metastasis-free survival \u2014 meaning the patient survived and the cancer did not spread \u2014 was 87.1%, compared with 85.9% for those taking luteinizing hormone\u2013releasing hormone antagonists.<\/p>\n

Thee five-year overall metastasis-free survival was 81.1% among those taking transdermal estrogen compared with 79.2% among those taking LHRH agonists.<\/p>\n

But the bigger news was about side effects.<\/p>\n

\"AThe promising results from the estrogen patch are the latest in a series of advances targeting prostate cancer.\u00a0 PRIME STOCK LAB \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

While 89% of LHRH agonist patients had hot flashes, only 44% of estrogen patch wearers did.<\/p>\n

On the flip side, only 42% of those treated with LHRH agonists experienced breast enlargement, but 85% on the estrogen patches did.<\/p>\n

In addition to being a potential boon for a cancerous undercarriage, estradiol has been found to support brain health by enhancing\u00a0neuroplasticity<\/a>, reducing\u00a0inflammation<\/a>,\u00a0and improving\u00a0communication between brain cells<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The promising results from the estrogen patch are the latest in a series of advances targeting prostate cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A team of Swedish researchers recently found that pioglitazone, a common antidiabetic drug, shows immense promise in keeping\u00a0prostate cancer<\/a>\u00a0at bay, as a study showed that the medication not only slowed the growth of cancer cells but also hampered their ability to grow back.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a UCLA study found that an\u00a0AI tool identified prostate cancer<\/a>\u00a0with 84% accuracy, compared with 67% for physicians, highlighting the potential of AI to improve diagnostic precision.<\/p>\n

While the overall five-year survival rate for prostate cancer is as high as 97%, studies have shown that men who avoid prostate cancer screening appointments are\u00a045% more likely to die<\/a>\u00a0from the disease.<\/p>\n

For those looking to reduce their risk of prostate cancer, experts suggest they keep it coming: Data from a\u00a0long-term health and lifestyle study<\/a>\u00a0suggests that those who ejaculate 21 or more times per month had a 19 to 22% lower risk of prostate cancer than those who ejaculated less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pass the patch. The US is in the middle of an estrogen patch shortage, with menopausal women struggling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[97,5446,18334,24295,17202,3284,673],"class_list":["post-728580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-hormones","tag-mens-health","tag-menopause","tag-prostate-cancer","tag-study-says","tag-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}