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(Circulation. 2003;107:e9047.)
© 2003 American Heart Association, Inc.

Cardiovascular News

Ruth SoRelle, MPH

Circulation Newswriter

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

Hormone Replacement Therapy Loses Again
The bad news about hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women continued in the May 28, 2003, issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association when researchers from the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS) reported that estrogen plus progestin therapy increased older women’s risk for probable dementia and does not protect against the development of cognitive impairment (JAMA. 2003;289:2651–2662). In another report from the same group, the combination hormone therapy was found not to improve global cognitive function in the women (JAMA. 2003;289:2663–2672), and in another study, the combination was found to increase stroke risk (JAMA. 2003;289:2673–2684).

Last year, the portion of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) that involved testing the effects of estrogen and progestin was ended early because of increased risk for breast cancer and heart disease associated with the combination (JAMA. 2002;288:321–333). The estrogen-alone portion of the study in women who have had hysterectomies continues. WHIMS is a substudy of the larger WHI trial.

A total of 4532 postmenopausal women aged 65 or older who were free of probable dementia entered WHIMS between May 1996 and December 1999—all of them also part of the WHI study. Cognitive functioning was tested at baseline and annually after that. The researchers, under the writing leadership of Sally Shumaker, MD, of Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC, wrote, "Of the 4532 participants in the estrogen plus progestin component of the WHIMS trial, 61 were diagnosed with probable dementia: 40 . . . [Full Text of this Article]