Research questions hormone therapy

By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

The risk of developing dementia nearly doubled for women taking estrogen plus progestin, the most commonly prescribed form of hormone therapy, according to a national study released today that included women from Hawai'i.

Researchers with the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center tested whether estrogen plus progestin would reduce the risk of dementia. The Women's Health Initiative Memory Study is the most comprehensive and rigorous study on the subject to date.

"Because of the potential harm and lack of benefit found, we recommend that older post-menopausal women not take the combination hormone therapy to prevent dementia and we hope that doctors will incorporate what we've learned in their recommendations to women," said Sally A. Shumaker, the national principal investigator and professor of public health sciences at Wake Forest.

About 200 women from Hawai'i participated.

Several faculty members with the University of Hawai'i's John A. Burns School of Medicine also participated in the study, including Dr. J. David Curb and Dr. Kamal Masaki, both professors of geriatric medicine.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, which occurs when memory, judgment and thinking ability decline substantially to the point that it interferes with basic, day-to-day activities.

More than 4,500 post-meno-pausal women 65 and older were followed for four years. Almost half — 2,229 women — received a daily tablet of the combination of estrogen plus progestin and the other half received a placebo.

The study found there would be 23 new cases a year for every 10,000 women using the therapy.

"The overall individual risk to women is low, although there is reason for concern," Shumaker said.

The memory study was part of a larger study, the Women's Health Initiative.

Researchers had not yet analyzed their dementia data last July when they told women in both studies to stop taking estrogen plus progestin because of serious health risks. The risks of developing breast cancer, strokes and cardiovascular disease outweighed the benefits of the hormone therapy, they found.