-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Lorraine A. Fitzpatrick, Hormones and the Heart: Controversies and Conundrums, The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Volume 88, Issue 12, 1 December 2003, Pages 5609–5610, https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2003-031809
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
One in three women will die from coronary heart disease (CHD) in the United States. This is in stark comparison to 1 in 25 women who will die from breast cancer. Because CHD is the leading cause of death in women, there has been an intense effort to understand the risk factors associated with CHD. CHD rates in women after menopause are two to three times those of women of the same age before menopause. This observation, along with epidemiological studies, suggested that estrogen might be a powerful agent to prevent CHD in women.
Until recently, emphasizing the potentially favorable protective effects of hormone therapy (HT) on cardiovascular endpoints was a routine part of medical practice. Observational studies (1–3) indicated a reduced relative risk of heart disease with HT and was bolstered by prospective studies that indicated favorable lipid profiles after administration of estrogen (4–7). These studies led us to believe that HT was cardioprotective, despite the fact that the benefits were often assessed by surrogate endpoints.
