Avani Abraham | Staff Writer
Featured Image: White women are significantly more likely to participate in hormone therapy. | Basma Elbahnasawy
For women of a certain age, menopause can be a time of uncomfortable symptoms, such as hot flashes and night sweats. To mediate these symptoms, some women may turn to hormone therapy (HT).
Christy Costanian, a fourth-year PhD Kinesiology and Health Science student at York, who specializes in epidemiology, has recently published a paper in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS), indicating a continuous decline of HT usage in Canada.
HT is a treatment that usually involves small doses of an estrogen-progesterone combination administered—as tablets or injections—to replace the hormones no longer produced by the body due to menopause, thus alleviating the symptoms that accompany the reduced levels of these hormones.
HT usage fell at a dramatic rate 15 years ago, due in large part to data released from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) in 2002. The WHI discovered an increased risk of breast cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke, and pulmonary embolism, which outweighed the benefits of the treatment. These findings have received extensive social media attention, resulting in declining HT usage rates, despite HT’s recognition as the most effective treatment for menopausal symptoms.
Costanian conducted a secondary data analysis on a sample of 10,835 women aged 45 to 85, using baseline data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. She aimed to investigate the various factors related to HT use and an earlier menopause, such as age and ethnic background.
“Our findings showed that 9.5 per cent of women reported current use of HT, 21.9 per cent had used it in the past, and 68.6 per cent had never used the treatment. Past users had a lower age of HT initiation than current users—45 to 49 years versus 50 to 54 years of age, respectively—and a longer duration of use than current users,” says Costanian.
Women of 80 years of age or older, non-white ethnic backgrounds, low employment status, regular smoking, obesity, and breast cancer were found to be negatively associated with current HT use.
“Results revealed that women who had more than one ethnic background, or were neither white nor Aboriginal, were less likely to be current HT users, compared to Caucasian women. Those who have had breast cancer were 54 per cent less likely to be current users,” she adds.
Conversely, alcohol consumption and presence of allergies or mood disorders were found to be positively associated with current HT usage.
“Former smokers, women who drink either at least or less than weekly, practice physical activity regularly, with a natural menopausal or surgical menopause, had allergies, or reported to have had a mood disorder, showed significantly higher odds of being a current HT user than their counterparts.
Costanian goes on to say: “These findings provide a new benchmark of HT use in Canada and may inform clinicians about women who are not using HT that perhaps should be using it.”
