One of negatives of the hormone replacement therapy (HRT) that is often used to ease menopause-related unpleasantness is a well documented increased risk of stroke. But evidence of that risk emerged from research involving women who took the conventional HRT pill, and not a lower dose estrogen patch. Now comes a study, published in the British Medical Journal, that looked at the records of 870,000 women ages 50 to 79 from 1987 to 2006.The Los Angeles Times reports that researchers, who identified 15,710 women who had strokes and compared them with
59,958 women who did not have strokes, found there was no higher
risk of stroke with a low-dose estrogen patch compared with not using
HRT. They also found that the risk of stroke increased up to 88 percent with high-dose
patches compared with no use of hormones. The risk of stroke was
increased about 25 percent from the HRT pill compared with no use of hormones.
Read an abstract of the study in the British Medical Journal.
Ive been on the patch for more than 25 years avery low dose. Do I have to worry about stroke or heartattack? Iam 58