Study Suggests Hormone Therapy May Reduce Risk of Depression During Menopause Transition

The risk of depression is known to increase among women as they enter the menopause transition and early postmenopausal period. Astudy published yesterday inJAMA Psychiatry found that perimenopausal and early postmenopausal women treated with estrogen plus progestin hormone therapy (HT) for 12 months were about half as likely to develop depression as women treated with placebo.“The findings of this study confirm that perimenopausal and early postmenopausal women are at high risk for developing clinically significant depressive symptoms,” wrote Jennifer L. Gordon, Ph.D., of the University of Regina, Canada, and colleagues. “Health care professionals should be alert t o the high risk for clinically significant depressive symptoms in this population.”Gordon and colleagues randomly assigned 172 healthy perimenopausal and early menopausal women aged 45 to 60 years to either continuous transdermal estradiol (0.1 mg/d) plus oral micronized progesterone every two to three months or placebo. Depressive symptoms were assessed at seven visits throughout the year using the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D).During the one-year study, women assigned to placebo were more likely than those assigned to the HT regimen to report clinically significant depressive symptoms, defined as a CES-D score of at least 16 (32% versus 17%). Women assigned to placebo were also more likely to have a higher mean CES-D score across the 12-month study compared with those receiv...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: CES-D estradiol Hadine Joffe hormone therapy Jennifer L. Gordon Martha Hickey progesterone Source Type: research