Menopause is a phase in a woman’s life when her body stops producing certain hormones, like estrogen and progesterone.
It usually starts when a woman is around 50 years old. During this time, many women experience uncomfortable symptoms like hot flashes and mood changes.
To relieve these symptoms, some women turn to hormone therapy, which gives the body the hormones it is no longer making.
Hormone therapy can come in different forms. It can be a pill that you swallow, a cream that you rub on your skin, or a suppository that you insert into your vagina.
The type of hormone therapy a woman uses may affect her risk for health issues like heart disease or high blood pressure.
Risks with Pill-Form Hormone Therapy
A recent study, published in the journal Hypertension, looked at over 112,000 women aged 45 and above who used estrogen-only hormone therapy.
This therapy comes in two common forms: estradiol and conjugated equine estrogen. Estradiol is a man-made hormone that is very similar to the estrogen a woman’s body makes before menopause.
Conjugated equine estrogen comes from horses and is an older type of therapy.
The research showed that women who took hormone therapy as a pill had a higher chance of getting high blood pressure compared to women who used hormone therapy as a skin cream or vaginal suppository.
Specifically, women taking the pill had a 14% higher risk than those using a skin cream and a 19% higher risk than those using a vaginal suppository. The risk was especially high in women under 70 years old.
The study also found that conjugated equine estrogen was linked to an 8% higher risk of high blood pressure compared to estradiol.
The longer a woman used hormone therapy or the higher the dose, the greater her risk of high blood pressure.
Weighing the Benefits and Risks of Hormone Therapy
It’s important to remember that hormone therapy can also have benefits. It can help ease menopause symptoms and improve a woman’s quality of life.
But, as this study suggests, the form of hormone therapy and the type of estrogen used can influence a woman’s risk of high blood pressure.
Therefore, if a woman decides to use hormone therapy, she might want to consider using a low-dose, non-pill form of estradiol.
This option could be a skin cream or vaginal suppository, which seems to carry less risk of high blood pressure.
Need for More Research
The study’s findings don’t tell the whole story. The researchers only looked at women over the age of 45 who were using estrogen-only therapy.
They did not collect data about women who still had their uterus or women who experienced menopause early.
Additionally, the study was based on medical records from Canada. Although the Canadian guidelines for hormone therapy are similar to the ones in the United States, the results might not apply to all women.
Going forward, the researchers plan to study other forms of hormone therapy. They want to look at therapies that combine estrogen and progestin and therapies that only use progestin.
Final Thoughts
Hormone therapy is a personal choice. Each woman going through menopause should have a conversation with her doctor about what’s best for her.
While hormone therapy can help with menopause symptoms, it’s important to consider the potential risks as well.
Hopefully, future research can help clarify the safest and most effective hormone treatments for women during this important stage of life.
If you care about high blood pressure, please read studies about potatoes and high blood pressure, and top 10 choices for a blood pressure-friendly diet
For more information about high blood pressure, please see recent studies about impact of vitamins on high blood pressure you need to know, and the powerful link between high blood pressure and a potassium-rich diet.
The study was published in Hypertension.
Copyright © 2023 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
