HRT Shown to Reduce Diabetes Rate in Some Women

A study of more than 2,000 women has shown that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can reduce diabetes by 35% in women with heart disease. The study was published in the January 6, 2003, issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The data were the result of further analysis of the Heart and Estrogen/Progestin Replacement Study (HERS) by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF, USA), to determine the effects of HRT compared with placebo in older postmenopausal women with heart disease. Some of the women had existing diabetes and some began the trial with impaired fasting glucose (IFG). Equal proportions of women with diabetes, with IFG, and without diabetes were randomly assigned to HRT or placebo in the trial.

The authors do not recommend the use of hormones for disease prevention, but instead encourage further study of the effects of estrogen and progestin hormone therapy on metabolic complications.

"The potential benefit to patients for one health outcome needs to be weighed against the risk for others, such as coronary events and breast cancer,” said Alka Kanaya, M.D., principal investigator and a UCSF assistant professor of medicine. "But our data allude to important metabolic benefits of HRT that should be studied further.”




Related Links:
University of California, San Francisco