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Defeat Diabetes: HRT “Could Cut Diabetes Rates”
HRT “Could Cut Diabetes Rates”

posted 01/07/03

By Health Newswire reporters

LONDON - Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can reduce diabetes by more than a third in women with heart disease, according to a new US study.
 

However, the researchers, from the University of California, are not recommending using hormones to prevent the disease, and are calling for further studies.

The research, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, looked at more than 2,700 women with coronary heart disease. It found that those who took HRT were less likely than those on placebo to develop diabetes.

The team, led by Dr Alka Kanaya, analysed data from the Heart and Estrogen/Progestin Replacement Study.

Some of the women did not have diabetes, some had existing diabetes and some began the trial with impaired fasting glucose – where the blood glucose level is not high enough to be classed as diabetes. Half the women were randomly given HRT, the rest were given placebo.

During the four-year trial, 160 women were diagnosed with diabetes – 62 of these were taking hormone therapy and 98 were on the placebo.

Researchers found that the blood sugar levels of the placebo group, both those with and without diabetes at the beginning of the study, had significantly worsened compared with those taking HRT.

However, Dr Alka Kanaya warned that the potential benefit to patients suffering from diabetes needed to be weighed against the danger that HRT could increase the risks of heart disease and breast cancer.

“Our data allude to important metabolic benefits of HRT that should be studied further,” she said.

The recent discovery that HRT may increase the risk of heart disease and breast cancer means hormone therapy is recommended for the short-term relief of menopausal symptoms only.

Source: Health-News.Co.UK.

January 2003 News Article Index

 

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