Eeeenteresting!

[tikistitch]

For women in 50s, hormone pills might be back on the table
Landmark study overstated heart risks, review finds

CHICAGO -- Maybe hormones aren't so bad for women's hearts after all -- if the women are still in their 50s.

In a postscript to a landmark study five years ago that led millions of women to abandon hormones during menopause, a new review suggests the heart risks for this group of women were overstated.

In fact, hormones probably are a reasonable short-term option for women in their 50s who need relief from hot flashes, night sweats and other symptoms, said Dr. Jacques Rossouw, the government researcher who led the original research and the new review of the high-profile Women's Health Initiative.

The pills -- either estrogen alone or a combination of estrogen-progestin -- don't get a complete stamp of approval because of stroke risks for both and breast cancer risks for the combination pill....

"Hormone therapy in women who are near menopause is probably not very dangerous," Grady said, noting that previous analyses of the study data also hinted at that.

However, concerns remain about the higher risk for breast cancer, which turned up in the original study of estrogen-progestin pills. So the general advice for hormones remains the same: Use them only to relieve symptoms, at the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible time, Rossouw said.

Will have to check out the original paper.

We have a personal interest in the Women's Health Initiative. Though it would be incorrect to say we worked on the study, we used women from the dietary arm--women on the famous low-fat diets--for an ancillary study. Too long a story to go into here, we were not exactly welcomed with open arms into this multicenter trial, and ended up concluding the women probably said they maintained their low fat diet partly because they incorrectly recalled what they were eating.

The low fat diet was supposed to affect their cancer risk, and it was absolutely not, as is commonly believed, a weight-loss regimen. Anyway, like a lot of good ideas ("Hey, I know, let's give vitamin A to smokers! Not.), this one didn't exactly work. Or rather, didn't work at all. It was interesting to hear a few years later, after we'd moved on from science and were working for a clothing manufacturer, that the study probably did have some utility, mainly, to warn menopausal women to take care with replacement hormones. Remember those commercials featuring Lauren Hutton warning you to take your hormones? Don't see 'em any more, do you?