Hormones for menopause are safe, study finds. Here’s what changed

(Allison Aubrey/ NPR Health) — The benefits of hormone therapy for the treatment of menopause symptoms outweigh the risks. That’s the conclusion of a new study published in the medical journal JAMA.

“Among women below the age of 60, we found hormone therapy has low risk of adverse events and [is] safe for treating bothersome hot flashes, night sweats and other menopausal symptoms, ” says study author Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. This is a departure from the advice many women have been given in the past.

The new analysis is based on two decades of follow-up data from the Women’s Health Initiative study, which followed thousands of women taking hormone replacement therapy. The study was halted after it was found that women taking Prempro, which is a combination of estrogen and progestin, had higher risks of breast cancer and stroke.

“The findings were surprising,” Manson says, pointing out that the reason the randomized trial was conducted was because scientists were trying to determine if hormone therapy decreased the risk of heart disease and other conditions. (…)