Research

Hormonal

Postmenopausal hormone therapy (estrogen alone or combined with progestin) is not associated with a significant decrease in the risk of stroke, and may be associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke.

For postmenopausal women, hormone therapy (estrogen alone or combined) does not reduce the risk of stroke. There is a suggestion of an increased risk of ischemic stroke among users, particularly with higher doses of estrogen.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
However, there was no significant association between stroke and use of combined hormones (multivariate adjusted relative risk, 1.09; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.66 to 1.80) or estrogen alone (relative risk, 1.27; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.95 to 1.69).
Francine Grodstein et al. · New England Journal of Medicine · 1996

Why this rating

Same large prospective cohort study with long follow-up and multivariate adjustment.

Source

Postmenopausal Estrogen and Progestin Use and the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease

Francine Grodstein et al. · New England Journal of Medicine · 1996

DOI 10.1056/nejm199608153350701

cohort · n=59337Cited 1,321×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →