Hormone replacement therapy’s benefits far outweigh risks despite notorious 2002 study tying it to higher chance of cancer and other diseases, doctors say

A 2002 study linking hormone replacement therapy to strokes and more has been found to be flawed, but the bad press led to a decline in women on the treatment

Doctors explain what it got wrong and why women should not be afraid to use HRT to combat night sweats, depression and other menopause symptoms

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Hormone replacement therapy has evolved in recent decades and is now available as gels, creams and patches. Now that a 2002 study linking the treatment to cancer has been debunked, experts explain its benefits. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 4:15am, 20 May 2023Updated: 5:05am, 20 May 2023

In 2002, US government researchers published what was called a landmark study on the risks for women of having hormone replacement therapy (HRT).

HRT has been used for decades to combat problems caused by menopause, and the study suggested that women taking the treatment were at increased risk of cancer, heart disease, dementia and more.

The research, carried out as part of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) – a series of studies focused on preventing certain health issues in postmenopausal women – has since been found to be flawed because of a number of factors.

These include discrepancies surrounding the type of HRT used, and it being based on HRT use by women in their sixties, who were statistically more at risk of strokes and cardiovascular problems anyway.

The “landmark” study on the risks of HRT was found to be flawed in part because it tested older women who were statistically more at risk of cardiovascular problems. Photo: Shutterstock

And so the “landmark” study is now being called a “landmine”, in that it destroyed many women’s confidence in how they were managing their menopause symptoms.

Dr Louise Newson, a British family doctor and menopause specialist who recently published her third book on the subject, The Definitive Guide to the Perimenopause and Menopause, says that the women in the study “were given types of HRT that we do not prescribe nowadays”.