10/15/2025
๐๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ฒ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ฆ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ข๐ฅ๐ฅ๐๐ข๐ง
In 2002, the Womenโs Health Initiative (WHI) stopped the estrogen + progestin arm of its study early after reporting increased rates of breast cancer, heart disease, stroke, and blood clots.
The headlines were everywhere โ and the message was clear:
โHormone Therapy is Dangerous.โ
Millions of women abruptly discontinued treatment, and HRT prescribing plummeted across the world.
But hereโs what the headlines got wrong ๐
๐น Risks overstated: the increase was less than 8 per 100,000 women.
๐น Study population skewed: participants were much older than women who typically start HRT.
๐น Many already had pre-existing conditions due to age.
๐น Limited scope: the study used only oral conjugated hormones โ not bioidentical forms.
๐น Key finding ignored: the estrogen-only group actually showed a decreased breast cancer risk.
๐ก Two decades later, weโre still undoing the fear those headlines created.