Diabetic women on HRT have better glycemic and lipid profiles.

2002 OCT 17 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Diabetic women who use hormone replacement therapy (HRT) were more likely to have their blood glucose under control, and have lower cholesterol levels than women who never used hormone therapy, a study by University at Buffalo epidemiologists has found.

Nondiabetic women who were using HRT also had lower total cholesterol levels, as well as higher levels of beneficial cholesterol, the study results showed.

The study, published in Diabetes Care, added yet another twist to the murky risks-benefits scenario surrounding HRT.

The U.S. government suspended a nationwide clinical trial of HRT in July 2002, citing, among other concerns, that the combination of estrogen and progesterone used in the trial did not protect against cardiovascular disease as expected.

Yet the UB researchers found that HRT had a positive effect on two important risk factors for heart disease - blood levels of fats and glucose - in a population-based study of 2786 diabetic and nondiabetic postmenopausal women between the ages of 40 and 74.

Carlos Crespo, PhD, associate professor of social and preventive medicine in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and lead author on the study, noted that the national HRT clinical trial did not include women with diabetes and that scientists haven't researched the benefits or risks of hormone replacement in this group.

"Although there may be some risk in using certain types of HRT among certain women, there might be a segment of women who would be better off using HRT," Crespo said. "These findings indicate that diabetic women may be one such segment."