Hrt doubles lupus risk

01 June 1995

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) doubles the risk of women developing systemic lupus erythematosus, which can cause severe inflammation of the blood vessels, tumours of the skin, and kidney disorders.

This frightening discovery, which seems to have been universally ignored, comes from the nurses' health study, involving 69,435 women.

They found that 30 women on HRT developed the illness, against 15 who had never taken hormones (Annals of Internal Medicine 1995; 122:430-3).

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