HRT 'maintains clearer arteries'

Women in their 50s who use one type of hormone replacement therapy develop healthier arteries, a study has suggested.

The discovery will add to the controversy surrounding HRT, over which experts are divided on its health effects.

Both arms of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study, involving more than 27,000 women, were halted early as experts argued about the significance of the results. Since then, scientists have continued to analyse the data with the latest findings suggesting that younger post-menopausal women using oestrogen-only HRT build up significantly fewer calcium deposits in their arteries than women of the same age not undergoing oestrogen-only HRT.

Calcium in the arteries is considered an early warning sign of blocked blood vessels and heart disease.

The result provides further support to critics of the original WHI findings, which were said to be misleading because the women taking part were mostly in their 60s and 70s.

In April a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that HRT reduced the risk of heart attacks for women in their 50s. Just over a year earlier WHI researchers reported a non-significant trend towards lower rates of heart attack among younger women taking oestrogen-only HRT. Significantly fewer women in this group needed procedures to reopen clogged arteries.

Because of an association with cancer of the womb lining, oestrogen-only HRT is normally reserved for women who have had hysterectomies. The other main type of HRT combines oestrogen and the hormone progestogen.

The new research involved 1,064 women who were aged 50 to 59 at the start of the trial.

Participants were randomly given either Premarin, an oestrogen-only HRT, or a dummy placebo pill. They took the medication or placebo for an average of nearly 7.5 years. Just over a year after the treatment ended, they were given computed tomography (CT) scans to measure the level of calcium plaque in their arteries. The HRT group was 30% to 40% less likely to have measurable amounts of coronary artery calcium than the placebo group.

Commenting on the results, the scientists were cautious. Lead author Dr JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, said: "Although our findings lend support to the theory that oestrogen may slow early stages of plaque build-up in the coronary arteries, oestrogen has complex effects and other known risks."

Share this article

Send this article to a friend »

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Reddit
• Facebook
• StumbleUpon

What are these?