Studies Sow Doubt Over Hormone Therapy Benefits
 (Boston, Reuters Health, 8/6/03)

Two new studies confirm that giving hormone treatments to older women may increase their heart attack risk, instead of protecting them from cardiac disease as doctors had claimed. JoAnn Manson of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and team, had to cut short their study of 16,608 women because it became apparent that Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) entails more risk than benefit. In a separate study, Howard Hodis of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and colleagues, found that 150 women taking hormones developed clogged arteries just as fast as 76 of their counterparts who were taking placebos.