Postmenopausal women should not use hormone therapy to prevent chronic medical conditions, because the risk of significant side effects outweighs the unclear evidence of a benefit, according to a government-backed panel of experts. Most chronic conditions - coronary heart disease, dementia, stroke, fractures, and breast cancer, for example - are more common with increasing age, but there is little evidence to link them with hormonal changes associated with menopause.
Still, hormone therapy was once commonly prescribed to prevent these conditions, until results from the large Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study revealed serious adverse health effects in postmenopausal women who received menopausal hormone therapy.
The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) based its new recommendations on a review of evidence from 18 studies involving more than 40,000 women, which showed some possible beneficial effects of hormone therapy but substantially increased risks of ill effects.
Instead of hormone therapy, the USPSTF has recommended, in other statements, a healthy diet and physical activity for the prevention of cardiovascular disease; daily low-dose aspirin to decrease the risk of colon cancer and cardiovascular disease in certain women; and medications like tamoxifen and raloxifene to decrease the risk of breast cancer in certain high-risk women.
"It is important to note that this recommendation is not focused on the use of hormone therapy to manage menopausal symptoms, such as hot flashes or night sweats," Dr Maureen Phipps of the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, a member of the Task Force, told Reuters Health by email.
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