HRT doubles blood clot risk

HRT can double the risk of a blood clot and increase the chances of heart disease.

Most of the seven different forms of HRT (hormone replacement therapy) increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, but one drug, tibolone, has been singled out as the most dangerous.

People taking sequential pill therapy double their risk of thromboembolism, or blood clot, while the risk rises by 57 percent for those on oestrogen-only pills and by 46 percent for those on transdermal combined drugs, which include gels, sprays and patches.

Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden compared the health of 77,512 postmenopausal women taking HRT against 842,102 who weren’t on the drug.  Those given HRT were on one of the seven types of the drug: oral combined continuous, oral combined sequential, oral unopposed oestrogen, oral oestrogen with local progestin, tibolone, transdermal combined, or transdermal unopposed oestrogen.

Some women who weren’t taking HRT also suffered heart problems—around 1.13 percent developed heart disease, while 0.45 percent suffered a stroke and 0.47 percent had a heart attack, and 1 percent had a blood clot.

HRT increased the risk beyond those levels, and tibolone was responsible for one extra case of heart disease for every thousand women taking it.

The discovery goes against earlier studies that had suggested that HRT protects the heart.

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