Neither HRT nor antioxidant vitamins offer cardiovascular benefits in women.(hormone replacement therapy)

2002 DEC 19 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Postmenopausal women with coronary disease do not receive cardiovascular benefits from taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or antioxidant vitamins, a new study has found. In fact, the study suggested that both treatments could cause harm.

HRT and antioxidant vitamins are often used for secondary prevention in postmenopausal women with coronary disease, but no clinical trials have demonstrated benefit to support their use, according to background information in the article.

David D. Waters, MD, of San Francisco General Hospital, and colleagues conducted a study to determine whether HRT or antioxidant vitamin supplements, alone or in combination, influence the progression of coronary artery disease in postmenopausal women, as measured by coronary angiography. Their work was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study consisted of the Women's Angiographic Vitamin and Estrogen (WAVE) Trial, a randomized, double-blind trial of 423 postmenopausal women with at least one 15-75% coronary stenosis (constriction or narrowing of an artery) at baseline coronary angiography. The trial was conducted from July 1997 to January 2002 in seven clinical centers in the United States and Canada.

Patients were randomly assigned to receive either 0.625 mg/d of conjugated equine estrogen (plus 2.5 mg/d of medroxyprogesterone acetate for women who had not had a hysterectomy), or matching placebo, and 400 IU of vitamin E twice daily plus 500 mg of vitamin C twice daily, or placebo.

The researchers found that coronary progression, measured in mean change, worsened for HRT by 0.047 mm/year and by 0.024 mm/year for HRT placebo; and for antioxidant vitamins by 0.044 mm/year and with vitamin placebo by 0.028 mm/year.