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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Experiencing the adverse effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may have less to do with whether women use HRT and more with how its applied.
A new study reveals a womans age and the mode of delivery has a significant impact on her risk of developing dangerous conditions associated with HRT. The Womens Health Initiative trial was stopped when researchers saw increased risk of breast cancer and stroke among women taking HRT. But in this latest study, researchers found younger women taking HRT (aged 51 to 54) had a 24 percent greater risk of heart attack than women who had never taken HRT.
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Researchers also found continuous HRT -- a continuous combination of estrogen and progesterone -- increased womens heart attack risk by 35 percent. However, when HRT was taken on a cyclical basis estrogen followed by a combination of estrogen and progesterone -- women actually tended to have lower heart attack risks compared to women who never took HRT. Whats more, if the method of taking HRT was through the skin either via patch or gel on the skin the risk of heart attack reduced more than one third.
Our study does not change indications and duration recommendations for HRT, study author Ellen Lokkegaard, M.D., a gynecologist at the Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, Denmark, was quoted as saying. But the main message is that when hormone therapy is indicated for a woman, then a cyclic combined regimen should be preferred, and that application via the skin or the vagina is associated with a decreased risk of myocardial infarction.
SOURCE: European Heart Journal, published online September 30, 2008
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