Transgender men and women who take hormones to change sex have a much higher risk of having a stroke or heart attack.
According to a study published in the journal Traffic, transgender patients undergoing hormone therapy are at high risk for serious cardiovascular problems, including stroke, heart attack, and blood clot.
Lose weight before starting treatment
“In light of our findings, we urge physicians and transgender people to be aware of this increased cardiovascular risk,” said Nienke Nota, endocrinology researcher in Amsterdam and author of the trial. “It may also be helpful to reduce risk factors by quitting smoking, exercising, eating healthy and losing weight before starting treatment,” she adds. Especially since transgender people may have additional psychosocial stressors, which further increase cardiovascular risk.
These new data are based on the medical records of 3,875 Dutch people who underwent hormone treatment between 1972 and 2015 as part of their gender transition. More specifically, the analysis focused on 2,517 transgender women, on average 30 years old, and 1,358 transgender men, on average 23 years old, all followed for around ten years. To assess the risk, the researchers determined their incidence of serious cardiovascular events, including heart attacks, strokes and blood clots, and then compared it to that of the general population.
Twice as many strokes
Experience has shown that transgender women (born women, Editor’s note) have had more than twice as many strokes as women (29 against 12) and almost twice as many as men (29 against 16). There were also five times more blood clots in transgender women (73) than in women (13) and 4.5 times more than in men (73 versus 16). Heart attacks were more than twice as common in trans women (30) than in women (13).
In the same logic, the risk of heart attack was three times higher in transgender men than in women (11 against 3). Because the study is based solely on a review of medical records, it does not take into account other risk factors such as smoking, psychosocial stressors, dietary habits and exercise.
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