Once Again, “We Knew This.”

Hormones are back in the news telling us what we knew, NBC reports,

Study finds health risks for transgender women on hormone therapy
The study looked at the records of 5,000 transgender people and found a higher risk of blood clots, stroke and heart attack for transgender women.
NBC News
By Avichai Scher
July 9.2018

Transgender women on hormone therapy may be at a higher risk for cardiovascular problems, such as stroke, blood clots and heart attack, researchers reported Monday.

The study was done by reviewing eight years of medical records of nearly 5,000 transgender patients in the Kaiser Health system, and looked at patients over the age of 18 who took hormones for gender transition. Over 97,000 cisgender patients — people whose sex assigned at birth matches their gender identity — with similar age and health characteristics were studied for comparison.

“This is the largest study of the health of transgender individuals on hormone therapy ever done,” Dr. Darios Getahun, an author of the study and research scientist at Kaiser Permanente, told NBC News. “Doctors and patients need to be aware of the possibility for increased health risks for transgender women.”

But there are flaws in the study.

The review of the records has limitations and isn’t enough to establish a direct cause and effect, Getahun cautioned. He noted that the study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, only had access to the patients’ records at Kaiser, so any outside medications couldn’t be accounted for. In addition, the dosage and type of hormones administered were unknown.

A traditional study to determine direct cause and effect usually involves one group receiving a placebo, while the other group takes the real medicine. But giving a patient in transition fake hormones without his or her knowledge or consent is ethically prohibitive.

You know a woman on HRT has many of the same risks as Cross-gender Hormone Therapy and look at the ads on television when they list the side effects of the drugs they are hawking. No treatment is without risk.

Every time we pop a pill we are making an assessment of risk/benefit even for aspirin.

When I started hormones back in 2004 my doctor told me all the risks of starting CHT and I accepted the risk.

What I worry about is…

“This is a great study and I’m not surprised by its conclusions,” he [Dr. Richard Greene, an associate professor of medicine and director of health disparities education at the New York University School of Medicine] told NBC News. “But my concern is that doctors who are inclined to deny hormone therapy will use this study as a reason to do so.”