New study disputes HRT risks

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HRT was at the centre of a health scare five years ago when an American study found it could increase the risk of heart attacks, strokes and breast cancer.

Health chiefs then advised HRT should be taken for as short a time as possible, and in Britain it was no longer recommended as a drug to prevent bone loss in women with a family history of osteoporosis.

But a new study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found no increased risk of heart attack for women in their 50s who were taking HRT.

The Women's Health Initiative Study discovered that any additional risks may apply only to older women.

Women in their 60s and 70s still experiencing the symptoms of the menopause, such as hot flushes and night sweats, were at an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes even if they were not taking HRT.

The study concludes: "Women who initiated hormone therapy closer to menopause tended to have reduced coronary heart disease risk compared with the increase in coronary heart disease risk among women more distant from menopause."

However, it said the trend "did not meet our criterion for statistical significance".

HRT expert Dr John Stevenson, from London's Royal Brompton Hospital, speaking to the British Menopause Society, said in reports that the findings were a "U-turn of dramatic proportions".

He said: "These conclusions are at complete variance with the widely-publicised 2002 results on which our guidance on prescribing is based. We are astonished that a study which made such a claim for the dangers of HRT is now showing just the opposite."