A new analysis of both estrogen and estrogen plus progestin data from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) hormone trials in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows a 24 percent reduction in risk for coronary heart disease events in women starting hormone therapy less than 10 years after menopause. The analysis, by researchers at Yale and eight other study centers participating in the Kronos Early Estrogen Prevention Study (KEEPS), also showed a 30 percent reduction in overall deaths among women aged 50 to 59 using hormone therapy.
However, the new study also found that hormone therapy increased coronary heart disease events by 28 percent in older women, and that deaths increased by 14 percent in women aged 70 to 79. There was a slightly elevated risk of stroke at all ages studied. “This new analysis of WHI data seems to confirm earlier findings that estrogen may be good early, but bad late,” said Dr. S. Mitchell Harman, director of the Kronos Longevity Research Institute.
The KEEPS will also examine whether the natural human estrogen, estradiol, delivered through the skin via a patch is equally effective as, and potentially safer than, oral estrogen. Researchers have speculated that this method may be safer since transdermal estrogen does not go to the liver in high concentrations and has been shown to have little or no effect on clotting disease.
Source: Health News Digest
