I thought I would start the New Year with a somewhat positive article that came out in the journal published by the North American Menopause Society. The journals’ name is appropriately, “Menopause”. Its cover is bright red…  I am not sure if this is meant to make it stand out or if the color represents hot flashes! I read the journal while trying to catch up on relevant articles during the holidays…these and my recent copies of the New Yorker have kept me mentally occupied. (I know that reading medical literature sounds boring, but actually I like it!)

So here is what caught my eye, and take a deep breath before reading the title; “Hip fracture in postmenopausal women after cessation of hormone therapy: results from a prospective study in a large health management organization”.

This was a study of 80,955 postmenopausal women who were 60 years old or older and had filled hormone therapy (HT) prescriptions at least once between January 2002 and June 2002. They were then followed through December 2008. (It takes years to gather the statistics, so most large studies will have concluded a few years before all of the results are actually published.)  The data on whether the women used HT, for how long,  and whether any antiosteoporotic medication was used, as well as the occurrence of hip fractures were collected from an electronic medical record system. The women in the study population were followed through Kaiser Permanente Southern California, which included 11 Southern California medical centers. (Yes they are huge!)  Bone mineral density was assessed with a DEXA scan in 54,209 women at least once  during the study period.

The results demonstrated that  during the 6.5 years of follow-up   (and after accounting for age, race and other medications), the women who discontinued HT were at a 55% greater risk of hip fracture than the women who continued to use HT.  The use of hormone therapy helped prevent fracture as long as it was used. But, within 2 years of stopping HT, hip fracture increased and the risk of fracture rose incrementally the longer the women discontinued this therapy. Every year that the women stopped HT was associated with a lower BMD (The T score which compare BMD to a 30 year old decreased on average – 0.13 a year.)

The authors concluded that “the public health message to women and physicians is that discontinuation of HT is associated with increased hip fracture risk and lower BMD compared to women who continue to take HT.”

There are many reasons to consider hormone therapy at the onset of menopause. For most women it is prescribed to help them deal with severe hot flashes, night sweats, sleep problems, mood changes and for some a feeling of “walking around in a fog”. There are also reasons to consider stopping after several years…. these include risk of breast cancer as well as a potential decrease in cardiovascular benefits.  The pros and cons of continuing HT for decreased risk of bone fracture should now also be considered. Who said this was easy! But it’s a subject that reaches epidemic proportions as approximately 1 million women enter the menopause each year in the United States.

In the year to come I’ll try to keep you up-to-date on the most recent published articles and studies on this and many other topics.

Have a healthy 2012!