How interesting that this question should come up today! I am at the National Patient's Conference for the Sjogren's Syndrome Foundation in Phoenix. One of the sections today addressed the link between Estrogen and Sjogren's.
The speaker was Dr. Ann Parke, professor of medicine U of Connecticut. In her talk, she gave us literature from various studies which state:
Esterogens:
Cause increased immunoglobulin synthesis
Promote resistance to immune tolerance
Females have a better resistance to a variety of infections but are more prone to autoimmune disease
Animal studies have demonstrated that hormonal manipulation can influence the expression of both SLE and Sjogren's syndrome in animal disease models
Female animal models develop more severe disease and have shortened life spans AND changing the hormonal environment produces less severe disease and can prolong the span for affected females. Manipulation in this case was decreasing estrogen production and adding testosterone.
She also discussed the benefits of taking Estrogens, which are the usual LDLs, and increasing HDLs, protecting against coronary artery disease.
So she said that it's a balance. She recommends for some of her autoimmune patients not to take esterogen.
Another interesting quote is that for her rheumatoid arthritics, which is also an autoimmune disease, during pregnancy, when the progesterone is increased over the estrogen, 80% of patients with rheumatoid arthritis improve during pregnancy and for 18 months postpartum.
In other words, immune modulation takes place during pregnancy which allows immunosuppression to take place to avoid the woman's body from rejecting her baby, which also allows autoimmune conditions a reprieve.
I am seriously considering tapering and then discontinuing my estrogen, of course after discussing this with my rheumatologist.
I will post more about this conference on my blog:
http://reasonablywell-julia.blogspot.com/Julia