Hormone Therapy Doesn't Boost Heart Attack Risk in Younger Women: Study

But it can still increase stroke and breast cancer risk, researchers add.

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter
Tuesday, April 3, 2007; 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

TUESDAY, April 3 (HealthDay News) -- There appears to be no risk of heart disease for women who start hormone therapy closer to the time of menopause, compared to women who start the treatment significantly later in life, a new study found.

In fact, women taking hormone therapy within a 10-year window of the start of menopause had a slightly reduced -- although not statistically significant -- risk of developing coronary heart disease.

However, hormone therapy did increase the risk of stroke by 32 percent and that risk did not seem to vary by age or time from menopause.

Finally, even in younger women, there appeared to be an increased risk of breast cancer in women taking the hormone estrogen with a progestin.

These findings should serve to offset somewhat the worry caused by the release in 2002 of data from the landmark Women's Health Initiative, which initially reported that all long-term hormone therapy could increase the risk of coronary heart disease.

"For women who are within 10 years of the onset of menopause and (have) bad menopausal symptoms, hormone therapy is a reasonable option for four to five years," said study lead author Dr. Jacques Rossouw, chief of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) Branch of the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. "On the other hand, women who are beyond 10 years are at an increased risk from hormone therapy for coronary heart disease, particularly if they have menopausal symptoms."

Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of Women & Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, added: "When the results of the Women's Health Initiative came out, there was a huge panic and women stopped taking the medication, but the results really needed to be analyzed. This (new study) allows us to tell our women patients, if you're suffering with hot flashes, if you're suffering with palpitations and not sleeping, it's OK to take hormone replacement in the short term. It still means we're not going to run out and tell a 70-year-old woman, 'I'm going to give you hormones because it will prevent heart disease,' but we never should have said that."