Due To Risk, Hormone Trial Halted!!

MSNBC News - Tuesday, July 9th

STUDY: Risks of hormone replacement outweigh benefits! Not only did hormone replacement therapy not prevent heart disease, it actually increased the risk of heart disease, strokes and blood clots, say researchers.

The large federal study designed to help settle the raging debate over whether hormone replacement therapy benefits postmenopausal women has been abruptly halted, researchers said Tuesday. The reason: The overall health risks of the hormones taken by some six million American women exceed their benefits, the study showed.

FOR YEARS, doctors and patients alike have struggled with the question of whether the benefits of the drugs, estrogen and progestin, outweigh their risks.

Given to replace the hormones that naturally decline after menopause, the drugs relieve hot flashes, mood swings and night sweats. And early research suggested the hormones also improve a woman's overall health.

Instead, the large Women's Health Initiative has found that combined hormone replacement therapy raises a woman's risk of breast cancer, stroke and heart disease.

Doctors have been anxiously awaiting the results of the trial - the first and largest study to compare the effects of the drugs to placebo in healthy women.

Upon stopping the trial, the federal government immediately sent a letter to the 16,000 participants and their doctors, advising them to stop the drugs.

"Not only did this therapy not prevent heart disease, it actually increased the risk of heart disease, strokes and blood clots," Rossouw told NBC News.

In an editorial accompanying the study, Drs. Suzanne Fletcher and Graham Colditz of Harvard Medical School said, "The whole purpose of healthy women taking long-term estrogen/progestin therapy is to preserve health and prevent disease."

"The results of this study provide strong evidence that the opposite is happening for important aspects of women's health, even if the absolute risk is low," they said.

"Given these results, we recommend that clinicians stop prescribing this combination for long-term use," they said.

NHLBI Director Dr. Claude Lenfant added , "The cardiovascular and cancer risks of estrogen plus progestin outweigh any benefits and a 26 percent increase in breast cancer risk is too high a price to pay, even if there were a heart benefit. Doctors reported last week that the combination of estrogen and progestin does not protect women from heart disease after menopause and may increase their chances of developing blood clots and gallbladder disease.

An estimated 38 percent of women past menopause take HRT for a range of reasons - some 70 million prescriptions written every year, according to the report.

The new study enrolled 16,608 postmenopausal women aged 50 to 79 years; about half were given combined estrogen and progestin in one daily tablet, made by Wyeth under the brand name Prempro, and the rest, placebo. Compared with placebo, HRT raised the risk of strokes by 41 percent, heart attacks by 29 percent and breast cancer cases by 26 percent, the study showed.

Complete Article at: http://www.msnbc.com/news/777875.asp?0bl=-0