This is Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Health Report.

American researchers report more risks for older women who takethe hormone replacement drugs estrogen and progestin. Theresearchers found that some women who take the hormones are atsharply higher risk for developing blockages in blood vessels in thelegs and lungs.

Hormone replacement drugs are designed to help ease problemsamong older women during menopause. This is when a woman's bodyproduces less of the hormones estrogen and progesterone. Lowerhormone levels in menopause cause some women to feel hot, experiencemood changes, and suffer bone loss. To help with these problems,some women have been taking estrogen or estrogen with progestin.

Earlier studies had suggested an increased risk of blood clotsamong women who took the hormones. But researchers did not knowuntil now that some groups of women are at even greater risk.

Researchers studied sixteen thousand women between the ages offifty and seventy-nine years old. They found that the risk of bloodclots for women who had taken the hormones was two times higher thanfor those who had not. The research showed that women over the ageof seventy who took the hormones had more than seven times the risk.And the researchers found that being overweight also raises thedanger of a blood clot among women who took the hormones.

Normally, taking aspirin reduces the risk of blood clots bythinning the blood. But researchers found that aspirin did not helpthe women who were also taking the hormones.

The latest findings come from a fifteen-year government studycalled the Women's Health Initiative.

For many years, health experts thought that the hormone drugscould help prevent heart disease, cancer and possibly mental illnessin women. But many women stopped taking the drugs two years agoafter a government study found that the hormones raised the risk ofheart disease and some cancers.

Experts say taking estrogen and progestin does reduce the risk ofthe bone loss disease, osteoporosis. The drugs have also been shownto lower the risk for colon cancer. However, American healthofficials advise women to take the smallest amount of hormonesneeded for the shortest possible time.

This VOA Special English Health Report was written by CynthiaKirk. This is Gwen Outen.