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Women with intact wombs generally do not take estrogen alone, because it increases the risk of uterine cancer.

The estrogen-and-progestin trial was halted in 2002, when the WHI researchers found that hormones caused a few extra heart attacks, strokes and breast cancers (although they prevented some hip fractures and colon cancers).

The estrogen-only trial was stopped two years later when researchers discovered that women taking Premarin had a slightly higher risk of stroke.

There was no difference in their risk of heart disease, and their breast cancer risk was actually lower.

Many researchers have questioned whether the findings of the WHI are applicable to the majority of menopausal women.

The average age of menopause is 51.

The average woman in the WHI was 63 and 12 years past menopause.

Monday's findings help explain the discrepancy between the WHI and the many previous studies that found hormone therapy good for the heart.

"Earlier studies involved mostly women who started hormone therapy within two or three years of menopause," said Manson.

"The randomized controlled trials (which are considered the gold standard for medical research) were done mostly in women in their 60s and 70s who were more than a decade past menopause." Manson said the new WHI analysis found that women t...

Such women already may have been suffering the health effects of aging when they started HRT.

A study published last month in the Journal of Women's Health also found that women who started taking replacement drugs as they began menopause - which typically starts in the mid-40s and lasts through the mid-50s - had a 30 per cent lower risk of heart disease than women who did not take them.

"Both studies clearly show no increased risk of coronary heart disease with oestrogen-alone therapy," said Ginger Constantine, Wyeth's vice-president for women's health care.

"Wyeth continues to support the appropriate use of hormone therapy for its approved indications - the relief of moderate to severe menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness and the prevention of post-menopausal osteoporosis," she said.

She said oestrogen or oestrogen-progestin "should not be used for the prevention or coronary heart disease" and Wyeth "recommends that therapy be taken at the lowest effective dose for the shortest duration." Joseph Sanfilippo, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, commenting on Monday's study, said, "Many women may find the results of the WHI trials confusing and contradictory, and to some extent they are.

"The earlier studies indicated that for older women (the therapy) did not p...

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