Here’s another reason to avoid hormone replacement therapy (HRT): if you are on estrogen-only hormone treatment, it could increase your risk of developing asthma, especially if you have allergies.

Previous research has shown that estrogen could be behind adult-onset asthma for women. In fact, asthma is significantly more common in females once they’ve begun menstruation and it tends to become less common after menopause.

However, asthma has become more common for females in all age groups in recent years. Researchers are now looking other types of hormonal treatments, from contraceptives to HRT, to see if they have an effect.

This study, which was published in the journal Thorax, looked at a large group of more than 57,000 French women who were menopausal age. At the beginning of the study, none of the participants had been diagnosed with asthma. Then researchers followed the participants for an average of 10 years.

The results show that women who took estrogen-only HRT had a 2/3 greater risk of getting asthma over women who had no HRT treatment. However, the increased risk disappeared after a couple of years off HRT treatment.

Source: Guardian