Hormone replacement therapy in healthy postmenopausal women. Effects on intraplatelet cyclic guanosine monophosphate, plasma endothelin-1 and neopterin

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Endothelin-1, published as a randomized controlled trial.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults, women only.

The study was performed at the Department of Endocrinology, University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

Fifty-one postmenopausal women participated in part 1 and 46 in part 2.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Endothelin-1 and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

As a double-blind Endothelin-1 study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

Some participants received a placebo instead of Endothelin-1, giving a reference point.

The methods mention a period of 3 months.

Part 1: double-blind randomized trial for 3 months; part 2: open study for 9 months.

Inclusion criteria included a history of amenorrhoea for at least 6 months before the study and body mass index >/= 24 kg m-2.

Randomization for either placebo (n = 24) or HRT (n = 27).

Performed at baseline and after 3 and 12 months of the study.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Blood Platelets, Cyclic GMP, Endothelin-1, Endothelium, Vascular, Estradiol, Estrogen Replacement Therapy and Estrogens, Conjugated (USP).

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Endothelin-1 over 3 months.

Its findings take up roughly 6 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2000 (Journal of internal medicine), a journal based in England.

More context: the Endothelin-1 compound page, all human trials.