A study to be published in the British Medical Journal’s Thorax,* which focuses on respiratory medicine, finds that estrogen-only hormone treatment for menopause symptoms is associated with higher risk of asthma. The study involved nearly 58,000 women over 12 years. The researchers compared women who had never used any form of hormone treatment, women who used estrogen plus progestin, and women who used estrogen only treatment.
The women who had used hormone treatments were 21% more likely to develop asthma; those who had used estrogen-only treatments showed a 54% higher overall risk of asthma.
Asthma is generally more common in young women after menarche, and more severe in women than in men.
*Neither the study nor the abstract appear to be available online.
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