Hormone therapy could increase risk of heart disease: Study

A new study has found hormone therapy can increase the risk of heart disease in patients during their gender-transition treatment. Researchers say they could suffer a stroke, heart attack or even blood clotting.

For the study, CVD cases in the transgender population were compared with cases in the general population. This included 3,875 individuals who had received hormone treatment - 2,517 transgender women received estrogen and 1,358 transgender men received testosterone.

Transwomen (Individuals assigned male sex at birth, but identify as female) were found to have more strokes than women and men. There were five times as many blood clotting cases among transwomen compared to women. For transmen ((Individuals assigned female sex at birth, but identify as male), their heart attack risk was much higher compared to women.

"In the light of our results, we urge both physicians and transgender individuals to be aware of this increased cardiovascular risk," Nienke Nota, a researcher at the Amsterdam University Medical Center in the Netherlands, told a news portal. Adding, "It may be helpful to reduce the risk factors by stopping smoking, exercising, eating a healthy diet and losing weight, if needed before starting therapy, and clinicians should continue to evaluate patients on an ongoing basis thereafter."