The Study Results

Current recommendations are that women who take HRT, should take it for the shortest time possible. The study examines what happens when HRT is terminated.

For women who had moderate to severe symptoms prior to the initiation of HRT, 56% of these women who actually took the hormones and 21% of the women who received a placebo reported similar symptoms at the termination of HRT. In other words, out of all the women who take HRT in order to alleviate menopausal symptoms, only half will actually find relief. The other half will find the symptoms returning when they terminate HRT.

For the entire group of women (regardless of their symptoms at the start of the study), 21% of the women actually taking hormones experienced moderate to severe symptoms when the HRT was stopped. 5% of the women taking a placebo experienced such symptoms when the placebo was stopped.

Women who experienced the symptoms, tried several alternative strategies to alleviate them. The most frequent strategies were drinking more fluids or increasing exercising. More than 86% of the women who tried these strategies reported that that they helped to reduce the symptoms.