Press Release

FOR RELEASE:
Contact: Tom Capezzuto
May 27, 2003, 4 p.m., E.S.T.
(973) 972-7273

At UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School
UMDNJ Researcher Says Risk of Dementia "Doubled" By Combined Hormone Replacement Therapy Results of National Study Reported in May 28 Issue of JAMA

Postmenopausal women who take combined estrogen plus progestin-the most common form of hormone replacement therapy-may double their risk of developing dementia, according to a researcher at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) who participated in a national study.

The Women's Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS), a sub-study of the 10-year Women's Health Initiative that was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), found that the drug combination proved deleterious in its ability to thwart the onset of dementia in older postmenopausal women, said Dr. Norman L. Lasser, a preventive cardiologist and principal investigator of the Women's Health Initiative at the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School in Newark. The results of the study, presented by the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., are published in the May 28 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"It was determined in the WHIMS study that the combined hormone therapy (0.625 milligrams per day of conjugated equine estrogen plus 2.5 milligrams a day of medroxyprogesterone acetate) actually doubled the risk for probable dementia in women 65 and older and did not prevent mild cognitive impairment," Dr. Lasser said. "The overall risk to women is low, although there is reason for concern."

Women in the WHIMS study, he noted, stopped taking the combined therapy last July when it was determined that the risks for developing breast cancer, strokes and cardiovascular disease outweighed the benefits, Dr. Lasser added. The WHIMS study involved 4,532 postmenopausal women age 65 and older who were followed for an average of 4.2 years at 39 of the 40 WHI clinical centers, including the UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School.

To arrange an interview with Dr. Lasser, please call Tom Capezzuto at (973) 972-7273.

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