When Should Women Start Hormone Replacement or Should They Take Them at All?
News on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has been very mixed, leaving a lot of women questioning what they should be doing. I hope to make these contradictory findings more clear.
Data from one of the studies, the Women’s Health Initiative, linked estrogen-progestin pills, such as Prempro, to increase risk of heart attacks, strokes and breast cancer. So high were the risks that the government study was halted two years ago, and many women were scared off hormone therapy altogether.
But an earlier, 2000 analysis of data from the Nurses Health Study (NHS) - another hormone test, had found seemingly contradictory results: Subjects who took hormones were 40 percent less likely to suffer heart attacks.
To put it all in perspective…A WOMAN’S RISK from taking menopause hormones may depend on THE AGE she starts taking them, according to an ongoing review of the two largest hormone studies.
Another recent, separate study of the WHI data, however, found new risks from estrogen-progestin pills, especially for women who are overweight and those over age 60. The University of Vermont analysis, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reinforced earlier suspicions that the pills raise the risk of potentially fatal blood clots in the legs. Another study in the same issue found no such increased clot risk associated with estrogen-only pills.
What should confused women take away from this evolving research? Maybe the clearest clues come from research by Grodstein’s colleague, Meir Stampfer, MD, DrPH, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition in the Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Stampfer’s research has shown that a healthy lifestyle-weight maintenance, no smoking, healthy diet, physical activity, moderate alcohol consumption-could prevent about 80 percent of heart disease in women. “Overall,” says Grodstein, “if women can maintain a healthy lifestyle, they can very successfully avoid heart disease without taking hormones.”
