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American Morning

NIH Releases New Study on Hormone Replacement Therapy

Aired July 09, 2002 - 09:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: For all you women out there who just thought you were beginning to understand what the hormone replacement therapy debate is all about? Guess what? Some more big news today. The National Institutes of Health has suddenly stopped a study of the long-term effects of the therapy. And researchers say the therapy might not be a good idea after all.

CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us with the details.

I'll tell you, Elizabeth, you talk to any OBGYN that has middle- aged women in their practice, and they will say that this is most heated issue in their office, how to treat the women going through menopause.

So what is this new thing?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well the new study, Paula, is a huge study from the National Institutes of Health. They just released it. As you said, they ended the study early. And basically, the bottom line of the study is that the combined hormone therapy that six million Americans take appears to cause blood clots, breast cancer, heart disease and stroke. And as I said, they ended the study earlier with a study of 16,000 women, and in that study, half of the women took the drugs and half of the women took placebos.

Let's look at the results, for every 10,000 women taking the hormones in one years, 31 women become ill with either heart disease, breast cancer, strokes or blood clots. That's 31 additional cases that they didn't see among the women who were taking placebos. Now, interestingly enough, the combined hormone therapy also seemed to lower the risk of colon cancer and hip fractures, but the doctors who wrote the article said yes, so it lowered it, but it's still not worth it, we still are advising women to really talk to their doctors about whether or not they want to stay on their therapy.

Paula, you mentioned that women are always asking their doctors, what should I do? Well, the bottom line here is that if a women is taking these drugs, and this is the combined estrogen and progestin hormone replacement therapy. If they're taking this therapy because the symptoms of menopause are just terrible. The hot flashes are horrible. The night sweats are horrible. They can't function. Well then, maybe it's worth the risk, because the risk are still relatively small. Maybe it's worth the risk. However, if women are taking it because they think that hormone replacement therapy prevents heart disease, which was once believed at one time, or they think it's going to promote their general overall health, they say that is not such a good idea, and you really need to talk to your doctor about getting off of that therapy -- Paula.

ZAHN: Let's ask you this. When you talk about the six million women who are already out there, you know, on this stuff, what percentage of them are we talking about coming off of this stuff immediately?

COHEN: You know what, Paula, unfortunately I am not able to hear you. Something is wrong with my earpiece. But I wanted to make a point here, which is that the studies have gone back and forth. We've seen studies that say hormone replacement therapy is good for you, hormone replacement therapy is bad for you. So I asked one of the authors of the study, how do you know that we're not going to see yet another study that says, sorry, we were wrong in July of 2002, it is good. You know what, this is 16,000. women. This was done by the NIH at 41 different medical centers around the country. The chances that something is going to come out that contradicts this is pretty small -- Paula.

ZAHN: Elizabeth, Can you hear me now?

COHEN: Guess Elizabeth can't. Thank you.

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