Hormone replacement therapy may not be as risky as previously thought, new study suggests

Hormone therapy for menopause not as risky, study says

Hormone replacement therapy for women may not be as potentially risky as previously thought, a new Mayo Clinic review says. The new study, which evaluated three decades of prior research, concluded that hormone therapy to treat symptoms of menopause doesnt increase overall risk of death or the risk of death from heart attack, stroke or cancer.

Concerns about the long-term safety of hormone therapy arose more than a decade ago when a large-scale federal study found that hormone therapy using estrogen and progestin increased a womans risk of heart attack, stroke, blood clots and breast cancer, compared with placebo. Estrogen alone increased risk of blood clots and stroke, but made no difference in heart attack risk and had an uncertain effect on breast cancer.

The new Mayo Clinic study, involving 52,000 women 50 or older, found that neither of the main hormone therapies affected a womans risk of dying from a heart attack, stroke or cancer. Heart and cancer doctors warned that hormone therapy should still be used sparingly pending further research. The findings were scheduled to be presented this month at the annual meeting of The Endocrine Society, in San Diego.

John Petrick

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Hormone replacement therapy may not be as risky as previously thought, new study suggests