Physicians First Watch June 21, 2007
Estrogen therapy in younger postmenopausal women is associated with less coronary-artery calcification, reports a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers studied some 1000 women from the Women's Health Initiative who were aged 50 to 59 at randomization, had previously undergone hysterectomy, and received conjugated equine estrogens or placebo for a mean of 7.4 years. Some 1.3 years after the trial was stopped (because of alarm over the number of cardiovascular events across all age ranges) and thus 8.7 years after randomization, the women underwent CT of the heart.
The mean calcium score was 83.1 for women on estrogens and 123.1 for those on placebo — a statistically significant difference.
The authors write that their results provide support "for the hypothesis that estrogen therapy may have cardioprotective effects in younger women." However, editorialists emphasize — as the authors do — that estrogens should not be used to prevent CVD
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