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Science
Friday > Archives > 2002 > July > July 26, 2002:
Hour One: Hormone
Replacement Therapy
Last month, doctors from the Women's Health Initiative called an
early halt to a research study looking at hormone replacement therapy
and heart attacks, advising women involved with the trial to stop
taking pills containing the hormones estrogen and progestin. Writing
in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the doctors explained
that "overall health risks exceeded benefits from use of combined
estrogen plus progestin for an average 5.2-year follow-up among healthy
postmenopausal US women. ... the results indicate that this regimen
should not be initiated or continued for primary prevention of coronary
heart disease."
Women in the study taking the estrogen plus progestin pills were
more likely to develop breast cancer than women taking placebo pills.
The risk of developing heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots also
increased among women taking the hormone pills. However, the therapy
did reduce the womens' risk of developing colorectal cancer and bone
fractures. The risks and benefits of other types of hormone replacement
therapy, including therapies using estrogen replacement alone, are
not yet known.
In addition, the study results deal only with long-term use of the
hormones. What, if anything, do these findings mean for women involved
with hormone replacement therapy programs designed to prevent some
of the health effects of menopause? Is all hormone replacement therapy
in doubt? Call in with your comments and questions at 1-800-989-8255,
and share your opinions online in our Listeners'
Lounge (registration
required).
Guests:
Elizabeth Barrett-Connor, MD
Member, Data Safety Monitoring Board
Women's Health Initiative
Professor and Chief of Family
& Preventive Medicine
Member, UCSD
Cancer Center Cancer Prevention & Control Program
University of California, San Diego
Deborah Grady, MD, MPH
Director
of the UCSF Mount Zion Women's Health Clinical Research Center
Professor of medicine
Professor and vice chair
of epidemiology and biostatistics
University of California, San Francisco
Marcie Richardson
Practicing OB/Gyn
Member, Board of Trustees
North American Menopause Society
Co-director, Menopause Consultation Service
Harvard Vanguard Medical
Associates
Boston, Massachusetts
Books/Articles Discussed:
Related Links:
Women's
Health Initiative
Estrogen
Plus Progestin Study Stopped, NHLBI
Cancer.gov
- Digest Page: Postmenopausal Hormone Use
North American Menopause Society
Study
Shows Estrogen Therapy to Raise Risk of Ovarian Cancer
WebMD/Lycos
- Article - New Warnings for Women Taking HRT
Estrogen
therapy raises ovarian cancer risk, study says
Boston
Globe Online / Living | Arts / Women weigh new hormone risks
This segment produced by Karin
Vergoth
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