About two decades ago, when the extensive and well-designed WHI studies completed, the verdict on estrogen was clear. Namely, it directly leads to clotting events and thus heart attacks and strokes, while also increasing risk of neurological (e.g. Alzheimer’s) and mental health conditions. The WHI study findings poured cold water on estrogen prescriptions, and over the next 2+ decades rates of estrogen-dependent cancer such as breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers in women dropped significantly. Ray mentioned this repeatedly in his articles and interviews. However, towards the end of the second decade of the 21st century, Big Pharma began to publish “expert” opinions in medical journals questioning the WHI findings and promoting the return of estrogenic HRT in women. You see, when you can’t afford (or don’t want) to run extensive multi-year studies with estrogen that could challenge the WHI findings, the only option is to manipulate the existing data by excluding cohorts and findings you do not like, and claim that the WHI were “misinterpreted”, so that now they can be properly “interpreted” by pharma experts and twisted to show that estrogen is at worst benign and at best a panacea for all the ills that plague modern women. As a result, estrogenic HRT has been making a steady comeback in allopathic medicine and women of all ages are being put on “the pill”, both as a form of contraception and as a tool to “improve” general health. The study below, again, pours cold water on the creative interpretations in regards to estrogen and shows once again that estrogen use, especially when obesity is present, is a potent inducer of clotting and thus puts all estrogen users at increased risk of ischemic events (heart attacks and strokes). It remains to be seen whether Big Pharma will take the new studies seriously or will, again, claim that the findings are not what they seem.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1172/jci193976
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-link-obesity-estrogen-blood-clotting.html
“…A research team led by Dr. Rinku Majumder from LSU Health New Orleans has published a groundbreaking study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation showing how obesity and estrogen-based medications (including hormonal therapies and oral contraceptives) act together to dramatically increase the thrombotic risk in premenopausal women. The study helps explain how obesity and estrogen collaborate and amplify thrombotic risk and offers new insight that could improve care for people who already face higher thrombotic risk, including patients with cancer. Researchers discovered that the risk of thrombosis increases dramatically in premenopausal women with obesity who are taking estrogen-based medications, due to a substantial reduction in Protein S, a natural anticoagulant that helps prevent harmful blood clots. When Protein S levels fall, thrombotic risk rises.”
