If you are a woman that is postmenopausal and on hormone placement therapy hot flashes may still be a part of your life. Recent studies have found that hot flashes that stick around after starting and continuing hormone replacement therapy may be a sign of future cardiovascular problems and risks.
A large-scale study of 27,000 women done by the National Institutes of health found that women who continued to have hot flashes and night sweats were at increased risk for heart disease and other health factors. The women most highly at risk were those more than 60 years of age or who were more than 10 years postmenopausal.
Dr. Jacques Rossouw, the lead author and chief of the WHI branch at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute said, "as a result of these findings, our advice to older women who have hot flashes and night sweats is that they try to get off hormone therapy, and have themselves checked and treated for cardiovascular risk factors." Rossouw also went on to say, "Luckily, most risk factors are treatable, and presumably you can lower your risk of heart disease by taking action. If you look at it that way, these [menopausal] symptoms could be seen as a useful clue."
Women were first alerted of the problems in 2002 when scientists released the information that hormone replacement therapy was not preventive for heart attacks after menopause as had long been thought. In this release scientists believed hormone therapy actually increased the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, blood clots and breast cancer and many women. The 2007 study was not simply done to verify the information found in the 2002 study but was also used to answer questions left unanswered for many women.
The study did not only offer negative information for women using hormone replacement therapy but positive facts for young women just beginning their therapy.
While this study by the WHI centered on women over the age of 60 who were postmenopausal, there was some fantastic news for those young women studied. Young women who’s use of hormone replacement therapy began soon after becoming postmenopausal and ended within five years, had little or no increased risk of any cardiovascular problems. The new study also lends the information that all postmenopausal women who were using hormones faced some sort of increase in the risk of a stroke. The women studied who were using a combination of estrogen and progesterone exhibited an increase in breast cancer as well.
