Estrogen pills, those with or without progestin, may increase women's
risk of becoming incontinent, or make the condition worse in those
who already have it, according to the Women's Health Initiative
study. It was previously thought that the hormone pills would prevent
incontinence, and many doctors had prescribed them specifically
to treat it.
In the study of over 27,000 women between the ages of 50 and 79,
those who took estrogen pills for one year were 53 percent more
likely to develop urinary incontinence than those who took a placebo.
Women who took pills with both estrogen and progestin had a 39 percent
increased risk.
Risks for stress incontinence, in which urine leakage is preceded
by pressure on the abdomen from sneezing, laughing, walking or coughing,
were most severe. Women taking estrogen pills more than doubled
their risk of stress incontinence, while those on combined estrogen
and progestin pills had similar risks.
In terms of women who already had incontinence, compared with women
taking a placebo those taking estrogen pills had a 60 percent greater
risk that it would worsen in a year, while those on the combined
pills had a 20 percent greater risk of worsening.
The same study previously found that hormone
pills increase the risk of:
- Heart attacks
- Strokes
- Breast cancer
- Dementia
The findings prompted millions of menopausal women to quit using
the hormones. In fact, prescriptions for the pills fell to 11 million
in the first half of 2004 (after the study was released), down from
16 million in the beginning of 2002.
Journal
of the American Medical Association March 2005;293(8):935-948
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