The WHI Quilts
In 2001 my serene life was rudely interrupted by the diagnosis of colon cancer. So, on May 1, surgery removed the malignancy, but it was discovered that it had been carried to both lungs, so chemotherapy started. I am convinced I owe my recovery to three things: 1) prayer; 2) exercise; 3) a good oncologist. Some research sometime, similar to WHI, was able to come up with a chemo that was perfect for my particular type of cancer. For this reason, I am happy that WHI is giving women the opportunity to contribute to research that will help someone down the line say as I do, "At 82, it's good to be alive."
JB
Elmhurst, 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 and others interested in the WHI findings a way of obtaining information about research results directly from the study.
What's New?
2/9/2009 - Multivitamin Use and Risk of Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease
A new WHI study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine reports that postmenopausal women who take multivitamins appear to have the same risk of most common cancers, cardiovascular disease, and dying as women who do not take multivitamin supplements.
2/4/2009 - Estrogen Plus Progestin and Breast Cancer
A new study on WHI participants published in the 2/4/09 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine reports that women who stop taking estrogen plus progestin hormones show a marked drop in breast cancer risk which was unrelated to change in mammography.
1/12/2009 - New results from the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (WHIMS-MRI)
The Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS), a WHI ancillary study looking at hormone therapy, cognition, and memory, recently released the results of MRI brain scans done on a subset of women previously enrolled in the WHI Hormone Trial.
3/5/2008 - Does a low-fat dietary pattern reduce the risk of developing diabetes among postmenopausal women?
In the WHI Dietary Modification Trial (Dietary Study), after an average of 8.1 years of follow-up, a total of 3,342 of the 48,835 participants developed diabetes mellitus that was treated by insulin or medications. There was a 4% reduced risk (not statistically significant) of developing diabetes in the low-fat dietary change group compared to participants in the usual diet comparison group. Participants who reported greater reductions in fat intake after the first year had greater reductions in risk of diabetes (statistically significant). However, the trend of reduced risk was not statistically significant after accounting for weight loss. Thus modest weight loss, rather than the proportion of fat, carbohydrate, and protein in the diet, may be the dominant predictor of reducing the risk of developing diabetes.
3/5/2008 - Health Risks and Benefits 3 Years After Stopping Randomized Treatment With Estrogen and Progestin
The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Estrogen plus Progestin Study (E+P) was stopped in July 2002 because of increased risks of cardiovascular disease and breast cancer in women taking active study pills, compared with those on placebo (inactive pills). After stopping study pills in the E+P trial, WHI continued to collect study data from participants to evaluate the effects of stopping hormone therapy. A new article by WHI investigators in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports updated information on the health outcomes of E+P Study participants three years after the intervention was stopped.
2/25/2008 - Hormone Therapy Increases Frequency of Abnormal Mammograms and Breast Biopsies
Combined estrogen plus progestin hormone therapy appears to increase the risk that women will have abnormal mammograms and breast biopsies, and may decrease the effectiveness of both tests for detecting breast cancer, according to a report recently published by WHI investigator Rowan T. Chlebowski, M.D., Ph.D.
10/9/07 - Low-fat dietary pattern and cancer
A low-fat dietary pattern may reduce the occurrence of invasive ovarian cancer among postmenopausal women. During the 8.1 years of the WHI Dietary Study's intervention phase, there were fewer new cases of ovarian cancer identified among the dietary change (intervention) participants than among the usual diet (comparison) participants.
During the first four years of the WHI Dietary Study, no effect of diet on ovarian cancer was apparent. This was anticipated in the study's design. It can take years to see the effect of a preventive intervention on cancer risk. After the first four years of the study, there was a statistically significant 40% risk reduction in ovarian cancer among participants in the low-fat dietary change group compared to the usual diet group.
Although ovarian cancer is a rare form of cancer among women, it is the seventh most common cancer and the fifth leading cause of cancer death among women in the United States.
6/20/07 - Estrogen Therapy and Coronary Artery Calcification
Results have just been released from the WHI Coronary Artery Calcium Study, a substudy of Estrogen-Alone participants who were 50-59 when they joined the WHI. Findings suggest that calcium plaque build-up in the coronary arteries was lower among women assigned to estrogen compared to placebo.
5/14/07 - Calcium/Vitamin D Supplementation May Help Prevent Weight Gain in Postmenopausal Women
Dr. Bette Caan, WHI investigator at the Oakland Clinical Center, and her co-authors looked at weight change in participants in the Calcium/Vitamin D Study (CaD). They found that at the end of the CaD study, women in the group taking study pills with active calcium plus vitamin D weighed an average of 0.28 pounds less than those taking the placebo pills. The investigators also found that women taking active CaD pills were less likely to gain weight than those taking placebo pills.
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.
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).
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).
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.