Word: estrogen
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...latest report on estrogen isn't bad news so much as it is incomplete news. Early data from a study involving 27,000 women, called the Women's Health Initiative, suggest that taking estrogen by itself or with the drug progestin slightly increases the risk of suffering blood clots, heart attacks and strokes...
What's going on here? Just two weeks ago, preliminary results from another study indicated that starting hormone-replacement therapy may make matters worse for some women with heart disease. Does this mean women should stop taking supplemental estrogen entirely...
...have called that assumption into question. But it's important not to interpret these results too broadly. Herrington's study and its predecessor looked at women who already had ailing hearts. Both followed their patients for a relatively short time--three to four years. It's quite possible that estrogen is better at preventing the onset of heart problems than it is at treating existing disease. We won't know whether that hypothesis is valid for five more years, when a much larger study on the effects of estrogen in healthy women reaches its conclusion...
...clear, as Herrington says, that "the whole relationship between estrogen and heart disease is more complex than we thought." The latest studies indicate that the hormone appears to increase some women's chances of heart problems in the first year after they begin taking it. Any positive cardiac benefits become apparent only after three years of therapy. So if you have never taken estrogen and suffer a heart attack, you probably shouldn't start using the drug. But if you have been on estrogen for several years and then have a heart attack, continuing to take estrogen shouldn't hurt...
...more on estrogen and heart disease, visit time.com/personal You can send e-mail for Christine to gorman@time.com