Estimated read time: Less than a minute
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Dr. Kim Mulvihill Reporting A new study released today highlights possible negative health effects of estrogen therapy in older women. The study finds post-menopausal women who had a hysterectomy were at an increased risk for dangerous blood clots if they took the hormone estrogen.
Estrogen pills raise older women's risk of blood clots, but not as much as supplements that also contain progestin, according to new data from a landmark government study on more than 10,000 women.
The study is the most rigorous to date to link estrogen-only pills with blood clots in healthy women past menopause.
While the results were not entirely unexpected, they add to a long list of complications found by the Women's Health Initiative, a large government-sponsored research project that has contradicted long held assumptions that hormones taken at menopause promote health and postpone age-related ills.
