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WASHINGTON, Feb 28, 2006 (UPI via COMTEX) -- The U.S. Women's Health Initiative took 15 years and cost $725 million to find startlingly results, including the risk of taking hormones during menopause.
Billed as one of the most definitive studies of women's health ever undertaken when it began in 1991, the project has changed thinking on many critical health issues thought already settled, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
For example, the study found menopause hormones are risky, low-fat diets don't protect against breast cancer or heart disease, and taking calcium and vitamin D doesn't protect bones or prevent colorectal cancer.
Critics, however, question some of the central conclusions and accused the news media of misinterpreting many of the results.
But Elizabeth Nabel, the director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute that oversees the WHI, told the Journal: "I'm not convinced anything really went terribly wrong here. I think this was a complex study with findings that did not turn out as many people hoped or expected, but when you drill down to the details the findings are very consistent with current health guidelines. I may be accused of being overly simplistic, but that's how I see it."
URL: www.upi.com Copyright 2006 by United Press International
