Postmenopausal women on hormone replacement therapy double the risk of developing lupus. This is what Colombian researchers suggest.
Menopause is a difficult time for women. Some people need to take hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in order to better cope with this great upheaval for the body. But these treatments would not be without danger. They could trigger an autoimmune lupus disease. This is what Colombian researchers suggest in a study published in the journal Plos One.
Metadata
To achieve this result, academics in Bogota gathered data from 7,000 studies to determine a possible link between the disease and HRT. They compared the medical data of postmenopausal women, some of whom were on HRT. Some of them also had lupus. They concluded that a woman on HRT is twice as likely to develop lupus.
However, the researchers remain cautious about the interpretation of their results: “Our research shows the possible existence of a link between lupus and women on HRT. But the realization of other studies is necessary to confirm this relation, specifies the principal author, Adriana Roja in a press release from the university, taken up by AFP.
40 French people out of 100,000 per year
Lupus erythematosus occurs when the immune system goes into disarray and attacks cells in the body. Several factors can trigger it such as genetic predispositions and external elements (tobacco, exposure to the sun) but also hormonal changes.
It manifests as joint inflammation, skin irritations, cognitive problems, and breathing problems. Each year in France, lupus affects 40 people in 100,000. A disease that mainly affects women aged 15 to 40 years.
.