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Timing of Postmenopausal Hormone Therapy a Critical Factor in Heart Disease Risk Says Study in Journal of Women's Health

Posted on: Thursday, 19 January 2006, 09:00 CST

The timing of estrogen replacement therapy in relation to a woman's age and time since onset of menopause may be a critical factor in whether hormone therapy protects against coronary heart disease, according to a report in the January/February 2006 issue (Vol. 15, No. 1) of Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The paper is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/jwh.

In the paper entitled, "Hormone Therapy and Coronary Heart Disease: The Role of Time Since Menopause and Age at Hormone Initiation," co-authors Francine Grodstein, Sc.D., JoAnn Manson, M.D., Dr.Ph., and Meir Stampfer, M.D., Dr.Ph., from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard School of Public Health, report that overall, postmenopausal women who used either estrogen alone or combined hormone therapy had approximately a 30% lower risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) compared to women who never used hormones, but the benefits of hormones, and especially unopposed estrogen, appeared to decline when therapy was initiated many years after menopause and at older ages.

Controversy regarding the heart-protective benefits of estrogen replacement therapy and puzzling discrepancies between observational studies of postmenopausal hormone therapy, which suggest a benefit, and the findings of the Women's Health Initiative, which do not support a correlation between hormone therapy and reduced heart disease, may be explained at least in part by taking into consideration the timing of hormone initiation relative to age and time since initiation of menopause.

The current study published in Journal of Women's Health reveals that women who participated in the Nurses' Health study and who began hormone therapy--either estrogen alone or a combination of estrogen and progestin--near the onset of menopause had a significantly reduced risk of coronary heart disease, whereas no significant relationship existed between hormone therapy and CHD for women who began taking hormones 10 years or more after menopause.

"This important study helps to address the complexity of the hormone therapy controversy, and fills in another piece of the puzzle," says Deputy Editor Wendy Klein, M.D., Senior Deputy Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women's Health, Richmond, VA. "The issue of timing in treatment with hormone therapy is clearly a factor which must be considered in weighing potential benefits."

Journal of Women's Health is an authoritative, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal published ten times a year. Under Editor-In-Chief Susan G. Kornstein, M.D., and Deputy Editor Wendy S. Klein, M.D., of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women's Health, Richmond, VA, the Journal publishes research on medical health issues affecting women across the lifespan and on gender differences in health, disease, and response to treatment.

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Obesity Management, Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics, and Thyroid. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 60 journals and books is available at www.liebertpub.com.

Source: Business Wire

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