OT.Hormone Therapy Linked to Stroke | Arthritis Information

-- Women on hormone therapy are at increased risk of stroke, whether they start shortly before or a decade after menopause, researchers here said.

Women who used estrogen alone had an increased stroke risk of almost 40% compared with the risk faced by women who didn't use hormones, and when estrogen was combined with progestin, the risk increased by 27%, Francine Grodstein, Sc.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health, and colleagues reported in the April 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

Their analysis of data from the 121,700-woman Nurses' Health Study showed that, for women ages 50 through 54, the attributable risk was about two additional cases of stroke per 10,000 women per year taking hormones.

Moreover, they found a strong dose-dependent response. Relative risk was 0.93 for 0.3 mg of oral conjugated estrogen and escalated to 1.54 when the dose was 0.625 -- the dose used in the Women's Health Initiative study -- and 1.62 at a dose of 1.25 mg (P for trend <0.001).

The authors said there was no higher risk of stroke for hormone therapy initiated at a younger age with a duration of less than five years, but they cautioned that "this apparently null result was based on a small number of cases."

The results, the authors said, were virtually identical to those seen in the Women's Health Initiative study, and Wyeth, the maker of Premarin (conjugated estrogen) and Prempro (estrogen/progestin) concurred with that statement.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Geriatrics/Strokes/tb/9261I had a stroke when I was 50. I was on Estrogen. I have continued this therapy for 12 years and I am fine. I went off the estrogen for about 6 months and I went through sweat hell. I sweat so much I even had BO in the morning. I hardly ever slept. Then I read somewhere that the hot sweats could last anywhere between 2 months to ten years and I went back on.

I only have this one life to live and I refuse to be miserable.

Quality of life is so much more important to me. Of course I take blood pressure meds and I eat healthy foods for the most part with a little cheating in between.

Thinkthin, I'm amazed that your doctor let you stay on estrogen. I was just talking to my sister about this. All three of us are on HT but only my second sister and I worry about it. But not enough to stop. My sister tried but was so miserable that she had to go back on, but at a much smaller dose. We have major Alzheimer's in the family so that's a concern too. Now she had to stop again because of break through bleeding and notices she doesn't feel as well or look as well. I believe the whole body suffers without estrogen, but it's a double-edged sword. For now, I'll continue. I thought they had decided recently that HRT had no differences when started at menapause and the stroke increase came when initiated later in life?

I had a stroke/whatever and I'm going to do HRT when the time comes. Too many other bad things keeps me on the pro-HRT side.

YMMV

Pip

edited to say 'other bad things = OA, bone loss, etc). I got enough to worry about with PRA.

Pip!2008-04-29 19:57:15

My Interneist warns me about it. He is a good Doctor and I know he is looking out for me.

Also my Gyne understands the risk but agrees with me that estrogen was most likely not the culprit if I have been on it for 12 years after my srtoke. She thinks I should be fine.

No one knows. I just know I have to sleep and I dont like to smell.

Nodbody likes a smelly crabby old lady.

I am on the smallest dose so I am trying to satisfy my Doctor. He is a man so he has not experienced anything like this and I think he understands that.