For most of the medical history, scientific research has largely been done on white men, which has made it difficult to know how to treat conditions that affect other populations, especially women.
Take menopause: For years, doctors have prescribed long-term use of the hormones estrogen and progestin to help women manage symptoms during and after menopause because they help women feel better. But in 1991, researchers wanted to know definitively whether the hormones used to relieve menopausal symptoms helped women more than they hurt them. So the National Institutes of Health launched the largest study ever focused exclusively on women to answer that question.
It’s called Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), the research project recruited 68,132 postmenopausal women to participate. They were divided into groups, some taking only estrogen, others taking estrogen and progestin, and still others taking a placebo. After more than a decade of observation, the researchers halted the trials early, in 2002 and 2004, because it was so clear that the hormones posed serious health risks to women.
But the researchers continued to follow up with these women in the years since, and also tested other health interventions on the group, including low-fat diets and vitamin D and calcium supplements. In 1998, a monitoring component of the Global Health Initiative was launched, with 93,676 other participants, to study more aspects of women’s health. Much of the data collected over the years is now available to other researchers as well.
This has created a goldmine of women’s health information that has paid off in huge ways. In fact, the findings from the WHI initiative generated a net economic return of $37.1 billion, or $140 for every dollar spent on the same experiment, according to Research published in May 2014 in Annals of internal medicine. That’s because the results have improved treatment and care for millions of women, reduced healthcare spending and increased quality of life. The Global Health Initiative continues to contribute to improving women’s health through indicative and complementary studies; The current pilot study collects annual health information from approved WHI participants through 2020, focusing on cardiovascular events and aging.
Here are some of the WHI’s most significant results to date:
1. You probably shouldn’t take hormones for longer than you should
Long-term use of estrogen and progestin increases the risk of breast cancer, heart attack, stroke, and blood clots, although it reduced the risk of hip fracture and colon cancer in the main WHI trial. While these findings have largely caused clinicians to stop prescribing long-term hormone replacements, individuals are encouraged to make a personal decision according to their own risk factors. For example, if a woman has a very low family history of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease, but a high risk of colon cancer and osteoporosis, she may choose to take hormones, which are thought to be safe when prescribed only for a short period around menopause, to manage symptoms . They can also extend Life expectancy for women who have had a hysterectomySo be sure to talk to your doctor about your specific needs.
2. Low-fat diets are fine, but not enough to reduce the risk of some types of cancer or cardiovascular disease
The researchers asked some of the participants to follow a low-fat diet, then compared how this affected the risk of various diseases. They found that a low-fat diet alone was not enough to significantly affect women’s risk Cardiovascular diseaseor breast or colorectal cancer, according to findings published in Journal of the American Medical Association (Gamma). The researchers concluded that more dramatic lifestyle changes, including increased exercise, may be necessary to influence the risk of these diseases.
Related link: The best and worst diet plans for weight loss, heart health, and more
3. Taking Vitamin D and Calcium Might Not Be Worth It
Some of the women in the study were given calcium and vitamin D supplements, while others were not. The Results showed that the supplement increased bone density in the hip, but did not significantly reduce the number of hip fractures the women sustained. The supplement also did not reduce the risk of colorectal cancer, according to the A paper published in New England Journal of Medicine. However, they did increase the risk of developing kidney stones.
4. Diet Soda
An observational study published in February 2019 in the journal brain attack I asked more than 80,000 women from the WHI study about diet soda consumption in the previous three months. The researchers found that those who drank two or more artificially sweetened beverages a day were 25 percent more likely to have a stroke during the 12-year study period compared to women who rarely or never drank diet drinks. Diet soda drinkers were also 30 percent more likely to develop heart disease, and 16 percent more likely to die from any cause. The researchers also found that the risks were higher in obese women and African-American women: Even those without any history of heart disease or diabetes were four times more likely to have a stroke.
5. If you are at risk of developing skin cancer, aspirin may help
Researchers analyzed data from a WHI observational study and found that women who took aspirin regularly had 20% lower risk of skin cancer compared to women who didn’t. The association was strong – the longer the women took the drug, the lower their risk. Aspirin comes with its own benefits (preventing subsequent heart problems) and disadvantages (increasing the risk of bleeding), so talk to your doctor before adding it to your routine.
