Increased Risks from Hormone Replacement Therapy

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What to Do if You Use HRT

Wondering what action to take based on the WHI study?

• Contact your doctor: “There is no good evidence that tapering off hormone therapy is better than simply stopping. But a woman should always notify her doctor, as there may be other reasons why the treatment was prescribed, such as osteoporosis prevention," says Isaac Schiff, M.D., chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

• Watch out for your heart. "Although there was a reduction in cardiovascular risk associated with hormone therapy after the WHI trial, all women need to continue to seek treatment for risk factors, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes," says Michael S. Lauer, M.D., a cardiologist and director of the NHLBI Division of Prevention and Population Sciences.

• Continue cancer screenings. “It’s possible that some breast cancers diagnosed after WHI participants stopped hormone therapy were present earlier. Mammography is much less reliable when a woman is taking hormones," says Marcia Stefanick, Ph.D., professor of medicine at Stanford University, Stanford, California, and coauthor of the WHI research report.