The WHI Quilts
Here's my quilt piece. I am not a quilter but I like crafts. I have one daughter, but I have four sisters and many, many nieces and they all have little girls. If what I do helps them, my time is well worth it.
JB
Willowbrook, IL
The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) is a long-term national health study that focuses on strategies for preventing heart disease, breast and colorectal cancer and fracture in postmenopausal women. This 15-year project involves over 161,000 women ages 50-79, and is one of the most definitive, far reaching programs of research on women's health ever undertaken in the U.S. The purpose of this site is to provide WHI participants others interested in the WHI findings a way of obtaining information about research results directly from the study.
What's New?
4/5/07 - Heart Attack and Stroke Risk in the Hormone Trials
WHI researchers have published a new analysis of the combined data from the two Hormone Trials to bring the effects by years since menopause into sharper focus. This combined analysis suggests that:
- Risk of heart attack from hormones may not be increased in women who start the hormones less than 10 years after menopause, but there is increasing risk in women who are more distant from menopause
- Risk of stroke from hormones does not depend on when a woman starts hormone therapy; strokes are increased regardless of years since menopause
- Risk of death from any cause appeared to be reduced in women who were 50-59 years at the time they started hormones in the two WHI trials
5/23/06 - Estrogen-alone and Stroke
Newly published results show that taking active estrogen alone study pills caused a significant increase in the risk of ischemic stroke; previously published results had shown that active estrogen plus progestin also increased the risk of stroke. The similarity in results from the two WHI Hormone Trials strengthens the finding that ischemic stroke risk is higher for women taking the active study pills and implies that estrogen (as opposed to progestin) is the more likely cause.
4/11/06 - Estrogen-alone and Breast Cancer
After at least seven years of follow-up, women with prior hysterectomy taking estrogen-alone do not have an increased risk of breast cancer.
4/10/06 - Estrogen-alone and Venous Thrombosis
Over an average 7.1 years, investigators found an early increased venous thromboembolism risk is associated with use of estrogen-alone, especially within the first two years, but this risk elevation is less than that for women taking estrogen plus progestin.
- Summary of these findings for WHI participants
- Abstract of scientific paper in Archives of Internal Medicine
2/28-3/1/06 - WHI Conference: The WHI Legacy to Future Generations of Women
The WHI Legacy to Future Generations of Women, a conference on the past, present, and future of WHI, was held February 28 - March 1, 2006, on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus in Bethesda, Maryland. It featured presentations on the primary results for the WHI Dietary Modification and Calcium/Vitamin D clinical trials and earlier findings from the two hormone trials. It also included information generated from the WHI Observational Study. Videocasts of both days of this conference are available on the NIH website. Viewing them requires the free RealPlayer.
2/15/06 - Results from the Calcium and Vitamin D Study
Primary results from the WHI Calcium and Vitamin D study have now been released! After 7 years of follow-up, findings on the effects of Calcium and Vitamin D supplements on the risk for hip fracture and colorectal cancer have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine (Feb 16, 2006).
- Summary of these findings for WHI participants
- Questions and answers
- Abstract of fracture paper in NEJM
- Abstract of colorectal cancer paper in NEJM
- NIH press release
2/7/06 - Results from the Dietary Study
The primary results are in! The WHI Dietary Study ended in March 2005 after an average of 8.1 years of follow-up and findings on breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and cardiovascular disease have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Feb 8, 2006).
- Summary of these findings for WHI participants
- Questions and answers
- Abstract of breast cancer paper in JAMA
- Abstract of colorectal cancer paper in JAMA
- Abstract of cardiovascular disease paper in JAMA
- NIH press release
Other WHI Findings
Summaries of WHI's major findings and links to published journal articles are available in the Findings section. Many of them also have corresponding guides in the Questions and Answers section.