Devastating side effects of teenage hormone therapy

Women given high doses of oestrogen as adolescents were almost twice as likely to have had &to=http://english.pravda.ru/science/ 19/94/379/10405_pregnancy.html' target=_blank>difficulty becoming pregnant, and were almost twice as likely to have seen a doctor about fertility problems.

The study looked at 780 Australian women, about half of whom were given high doses of oestrogen to hasten puberty and restrict the growth of long bones as adolescents between 1959 and 1993.

Researchers found that those who took the hormones - which contained three to five times the level of oestrogen in the contraceptive pill - were 80 per cent more likely to have tried for a year or more to become pregnant without success, and 80 per cent more likely to have seen a doctor about fertility problems, informs The Age.

"Our findings indicate that exposure to high-dose estrogens in adolescence is associated with impaired fertility later in life," said Alison Venn, of the University of Tasmania.

Estrogen treatment to reduce height in &to=http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/2002/05/16/28857.html' target=_blank>young women has been available since the 1950s. It changes the development of the long bones and has been reported to decrease adult height by 0.7- 4 inches.