Hormones have cardiovascular benefits

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Study: Hormones in menopause reduce artery disease

CHICAGO (AP) -- A Dutch study of more than 2,000 women bolsters research

suggesting that hormone supplements taken in menopause have cardiovascular

benefits.

Compared with subjects who never used estrogen and progestin, women who took

those hormone supplements for at least a year had a 47 percent lower risk of

peripheral artery disease, or hardening of the arteries in the legs.

Peripheral artery disease affects 8 million Americans, including 5 percent

of the over-50 population, according to the Society of Cardiovascular &

Intervention Radiology.

It is considered a marker for heart disease in older people because most who

have it also have coronary arteriosclerosis, or thickening in the arteries

to the heart, said Dr. Rita Redberg, a spokeswoman for the American Heart

Association and a San Francisco cardiologist.

The Dutch findings suggest that the benefits remain after women stop using

hormones, according to the study in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine,

an American Medical Association publication.

Lead researcher Dr. Iris C.D. Westendorp of Erasmus University in Rotterdam,

Netherlands, and colleagues said the results could have important

implications for a disease that is becoming more prevalent as the population

ages.

However, they noted that other research has suggested that healthier women

are more likely to use hormones and the supplements' supposed benefits are

due more to " preexisting characteristics " of the users.

" We cannot exclude the possibility that some (or the whole) of our findings

are based on this selection bias, " the authors wrote.

Hormones have long been believed to lower the risk of heart attack by

improving cholesterol levels, though recent research suggests there is no

protective effect in users who already have heart disease.

U.S. researchers hope their ongoing Women's Health Initiative _ a nationwide

study comparing effects of hormones with a placebo _ will clear up the

confusion.

Though the Dutch study was well done, its findings cannot be considered

conclusive until completion of randomized studies like the Women's Health

Initiative, Redberg said.

The Dutch study involved 2,196 women ages 55 to 80 living near Rotterdam.

Hormone treatment for up to more than 15 years, with either estrogen alone

or with progestin, was reported by 351 women.

Of those 351 women, 34 had peripheral arterial disease. That compared with

disease diagnosed in 247 of the 1,837 women who didn't use hormones.

Overall, hormone users had a 30 percent lower risk of arterial disease,

though use for less than a year wasn't associated with a protective effect.