The Women's Health Initiative: Lessons for Preventive Nutrition

Toward the end of the 1980s, considerable evidence was accumulating from observational studies and some short-term trials with nondisease endpoints that identified factors that might benefit women in their postmenopausal years. The balance of randomized trials prior to that point had been focused on men and men’s health. The confluence of scientific discovery and political will led to the design and ultimate funding of what was to be known as the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). Two main factors in this category were hormone replacement therapy (hormone therapy), suggested to prevent cardiovascular disease, the number one cause of death among women, and total dietary fat reduction for purposes of reducing risk for breast and colorectal cancers, also major causes of death and disability among women. These became the two, overlapping, main trials that were the core of WHI.