Ten years ago, researchers sponsored by the National Institutes of Health released the findings of the massive study looking into the whether the risks outweighed the benefits or the benefits outweighed the risks in hormone (estrogen plus progestin) therapy for postmenapausal women, in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI).
The findings then were fairly clear: the risks outweighed the benefits for postmenapausal women.
However, much has changed in the previous ten years, so USA Today's Janice Lloyd sat down with a lead investigator of the WHI Harvard Medical School professor of medicine JoAnn Manson to learn about what women should know about what has changed and what they need to know.
Some of the salient points that Professor Manson told Lloyd:
- Even though many people probably over-reacted, in the grand scheme it was good that at-risk women stopped HT because they did lower their risk for breast cancer, stroke and heart attack.
- "WHI deserves credit for stopping what was becoming common practice of starting hormone therapy in older women at high risk for heart disease because we found it failed to protect them from heart disease, stroke or dementia, and actually increased their risk."
- WHI was partly flawed in that there were not enough younger age women
- HT must be an individual decision; there is no one-size-fits-all.
- The ideal patient most likely to benefit from HT is "newly menopausal, within five years of onset of menopause, and in generally good health, with few risk factors for heart disease or breast cancer." She shouldn't be a smoker, nor overweight, nor have diabetes or high blood pressure.
- Five years is considered the maximum amount of time that women should be on HT due to breast cancer risk.
- More information on HT and what to talk to your doctor about can be found at menopause.org.
Source: USA Today
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