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Tuesday, February 14, 2006Estrogen does not increase the risk of heart disease for women in their 50s and may even be protective, according to an analysis of a 2002 study that led millions of women to discontinue hormone replacement therapy after menopause. It's actually not a new study. It's a re-examination of the data of the old study, but this time focusing on younger women - those ages 50-59, rather than women of all ages. Which is why, on the same day, we also get headlines like this: Older women who use estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) following a hysterectomy have about the same risk for heart disease as women who don't use the hormone. The key difference between the two is the age of their subjects. As mentioned many times before on this blog, aging is the number one risk factor for heart disease. The risk from taking estrogen is miniscule compared to the risk of getting old. posted by Sydney on 2/14/2006 08:39:00 AM 4 comments 4 Comments:
What bugs me about all these studies is that nobody considers women under 50. There are some of us on HRT who are in our 40s, some in our 30s and even some in our 20s. By 12:46 PM , at
I'm another one bugged by these studies. There is little importance placed on the fact that all these studies used Premarin or PremPro, and as such were not using chemically identical hormones...and the impact that fact could well have on increasing risk factors (not to mention that risk factor increase was marginal anyway). NOR were the study particpants using more than one type of estrogen, as well as progesterone, and testosterone. NOR was the type of hormone therapy being used based on an ongoing monitoring of hormone levels! By 12:58 PM , at
One of my major peeves about the medical publication system is the incredible pressure to meta-analyze the study. Especially these long term studies. I completely understand the ethical responsibility of researchers to halt a potentially harmful study early, but analysis for analysis sake is really a type 1 error. When the final results are conflicting, the earlier release confuses patients and practitioners alike. HRT is bad, HRT is good for some, Low-fat diet helps, low-fat diet doesn't help. By Caltechgirl, at 1:57 PM All I can say, it's about damn time. I spent hours and hours worth of time trying to explain to younger women suffering from menopausal symptoms that the study did not apply to them and that looking at the perimenopausal group- the ones that may need estrogen the most- might yield better news. By 8:20 PM , at |
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