Hormone Replacement Therapy Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Hormone Replacement Therapy, including details on hrt, menopause, natural hrt, effects, risks.

Coronary heart disease in postmenopausal recipients of estrogen plus progestin therapy: does the increased risk ever disappear? A randomized trial.

Toh S, Hernández-Díaz S, Logan R, Rossouw JE, Hernán MA

Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School/Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, 133 Brookline Avenue, 6th Floor, Boston, MA 02215, USA. darrentoh@post.harvard.edu

BACKGROUND: Estrogen plus progestin therapy increases the risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) in postmenopausal women. However, this increased risk might be limited to the first years of use and to women who start therapy late in menopause. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the effect of continuous estrogen plus progestin therapy on CHD risk over time and stratified by years since menopause. DESIGN: Women's Health Initiative randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial. (ClinicalTrials.gov registration number: NCT00000611) SETTING: 40 U.S. clinical centers. PATIENTS: 16 608 postmenopausal women with an intact uterus at baseline from 1993 to 1998. INTERVENTION: Conjugated equine estrogens, 0.625 mg/d, plus medroxyprogesterone acetate, 2.5 mg/d, or placebo. MEASUREMENTS: Adherence-adjusted hazard ratios and CHD-free survival curves estimated through inverse probability weighting. RESULTS: Compared with no use of hormone therapy, the hazard ratio for continuous use of estrogen plus progestin therapy was 2.36 (95% CI, 1.55 to 3.62) for the first 2 years and 1.69 (CI, 0.98 to 2.89) for the first 8 years. For women within 10 years after menopause, the hazard ratios were 1.29 (CI, 0.52 to 3.18) for the first 2 years and 0.64 (CI, 0.21 to 1.99) for the first 8 years, and the CHD-free survival curves for continuous use and no use of estrogen plus progestin crossed at about 6 years (CI, 2 years to 10 years). LIMITATION: The analysis may not have fully adjusted for joint determinants of adherence and CHD risk. Sample sizes for some subgroup analyses were small. CONCLUSION: No suggestion of a decreased risk for CHD was found within the first 2 years of estrogen plus progestin use, including in women who initiated therapy within 10 years after menopause. A possible cardioprotective effect in these women who initiated therapy closer to menopause became apparent only after 6 years of use. PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Published 16 February 2010 in Ann Intern Med, 152(4): 211-7.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

Articles on Hormone Replacement Therapy published 5 February 2010:

Menopausal hormone therapy use and risk of invasive colon cancer: the California Teachers Study.   Am J Epidemiol, 171(4): 415-25.

Results from epidemiologic studies of hormone therapy use and colon cancer risk are inconsistent. This question was investigated in the California Teachers Study (1995-2006) among 56,864 perimenopausal or postmenopausal participants under 80 years of age with no prior colorectal cancer by using Cox proportional hazards regression. Incident invasive colon cancer was diagnosed among 442 participants. Baseline-recent hormone therapy users were at 36% lower risk for colon cancer versus ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Hormone Replacement Therapy published 21 January 2010:

Postmenopausal hormone therapy and risk of idiopathic venous thromboembolism: results from the E3N cohort study.   Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol, 30(2): 340-5.

OBJECTIVE: Oral estrogen therapy increases venous thromboembolism risk among postmenopausal women. Although recent data showed transdermal estrogens may be safe with respect to thrombotic risk, the impact of the route of estrogen administration and concomitant progestogens is not fully established. METHODS AND RESULTS: We used data from the E3N French prospective cohort of women born between 1925 and 1950 and biennially followed by questionnaires from 1990. Study population consisted of 80 308 ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Hormone Replacement Therapy published 19 January 2010:

Endothelial nitric oxide synthase gene variants and primary open-angle glaucoma: interactions with sex and postmenopausal hormone use.   Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci, 51(2): 971-9.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the association between the nitric oxide synthase gene (NOS3) variants and primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). METHODS: Two functional single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (T-786C: rs2070744; Glu298Asp: rs1799983) and three tagging SNPs (rs7830, rs3918188, and rs1800779) were evaluated in a nested case-control study from the Nurses' Health Study (1980-2002) and the Health Professionals' Follow-up Study (1986-2002). Participants were aged >or=40 years and Caucasian. ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Hormone Replacement Therapy published 23 December 2009:

The effects of growth hormone (GH) treatment on GH and insulin/IGF-1 signaling in long-lived Ames dwarf mice.   J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci, 65(1): 24-30.

The disruption of the growth hormone (GH) axis in mice promotes insulin sensitivity and is strongly correlated with extended longevity. Ames dwarf (Prop1(df), df/df) mice are GH, prolactin (PRL), and thyrotropin (TSH) deficient and live approximately 50% longer than their normal siblings. To investigate the effects of GH on insulin and GH signaling pathways, we subjected these dwarf mice to twice-daily GH injections (6 microg/g/d) starting at the age of 2 weeks and continuing for 6 weeks. This ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Hormone Replacement Therapy published 18 December 2009:

Conjugated equine estrogen influence on mammographic density in postmenopausal women in a substudy of the women's health initiative randomized trial.   J Clin Oncol, 27(36): 6135-43.

PURPOSE: Increased mammographic density is associated with increased breast cancer risk and reduced sensitivity of screening mammography and is related to hormone exposure. However, the effects of conjugated equine estrogens (CEEs) alone on mammographic density in diverse racial/ethnic populations are not established. We examined the effect of CEE alone on mammographic density in a subsample of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) clinical trial participants. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In the WHI ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Hormone Replacement Therapy published 16 December 2009:

A case-control study on hormone therapy as a risk factor for breast cancer in Finland: Intrauterine system carries a risk as well.   Int J Cancer, 126(2): 483-9.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the association between postmenopausal hormone therapy (HT) and the risk for breast cancer in recently postmenopausal Finnish women. All Finnish women with first invasive breast cancer diagnosed between the ages of 50 and 62 years during 1995-2007 (n = 9,956) were identified from the Finnish Cancer Registry. For each case, 3 controls of the same age were retrieved from the Finnish Population Register. The cases and controls were linked to the national ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Articles on Hormone Replacement Therapy published 9 December 2009:

Aging, estrogens, and episodic memory in women.   Cogn Behav Neurol, 22(4): 205-14.

OBJECTIVE: To review the relation in midlife and beyond between estrogen exposures and episodic memory in women. BACKGROUND: Episodic memory performance declines with usual aging, and impairments in episodic memory often portend the development of Alzheimer disease. In the laboratory, estradiol influences hippocampal function and animal learning. However, it is controversial whether estrogens affect memory after a woman's reproductive years. METHOD: Focused literature review, including a ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

Menopausal hormone therapy, hormone receptor status, and lung cancer in women.   Semin Oncol, 36(6): 566-71.

Gender differences in lung cancer incidence and outcome suggest a potential role for reproductive hormones. However, observational studies regarding menopausal hormone therapy use and lung cancer have given mixed results. Some have associated hormone therapy use with increased lung cancer risk, while others have shown no effect or found lower lung cancer risk in hormone therapy users. Against this background the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) randomized controlled trial evaluating conjugated ... [Abstract] [Full-text]

© 2004-2010 Hormone Replacement Therapy Research Today. All Rights Reserved.