Medically transitioning to male or female is not the risk-free endeavor that many in the gender identity movement and rapidly-expanding gender transition industry make it out to be.
Transgender individuals who take hormone drugs have an increased risk of suffering a stroke or heart attack, according to a new study.
Researchers at Mercy Catholic Medical Center in Darby, Pennsylvania have found that trans patients who take the drugs (biological males are typically prescribed estrogen, while biological females receive testosterone) are up to seven times more likely to suffer an ischemic stroke compared to trans patients who are not prescribed them, Daily Mail Online reported on Feb. 23.
They were also nearly six times more likely to suffer myocardial infarction - the most serious type of heart attack — and had a five times higher risk of pulmonary embolism, a blockage in an artery in the lung, the researchers said.
"It's all about risks and benefits. Starting transitioning is a big part of a person's life and helping them feel more themselves, but hormone replacement therapy also has a lot of side effects," said Dr Ibrahim Ahmed, lead author of the study and resident at the hospital.
"Researchers found that, across the study population, people who suffered from gender dysphoria and received the treatment were 7.15-fold more likely to suffer an ischemic stroke than those who did not," the Daily Mail report noted. "This occurs when blood clotting blocks crucial arteries blood uses to travel to the brain. Around 17 percent of these events result in death."
Pulmonary embolisms, when blood clotting the artery block blood to the lungs, were also 4.92-fold more common in people who received hormone treatments.
Myocardial infarctions, one of the most deadly forms of heart attack, also caused by blood clotting, is 5.9-fold more common in people who underwent hormone therapy.
"While some have disputed the link, large-scale studies have linked pill forms of hormone treatments to an increased risk of blood clotting, especially in women," the report added.
Both estrogen and testosterone are known to increase the clotting activity of blood, which could explain the increased risk.
Individuals taking hormone replacement therapy also had higher rates of substance use disorder and hypothyroidism, which both raise the risk of clots and cardiovascular problems, the study said.
An estimated 1.6 million Americans age 13 and older identify as transgender, according to a University of California Los Angeles report.
The hormones can be taken as pills, patches and gels, and are taken continuously throughout adulthood, or until the desired physical traits are achieved.
Surgical options include facial, chest and genital altering procedures, and are generally the last step of the transition process.
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