Researchers in the US looked at the impact of oestrogen therapy and if it could do more for women\u2019s health than just relieving the symptoms of perimenopause.<\/p>\n
Analysis of more than 120 million patient records compared oestrogen therapy started during perimenopause to therapies given after the menopause or not at all.<\/p>\n
They suggest perimenopausal women on oestrogen therapy for at least a decade before menopause had around a 60% lower risk of developing breast cancer, having a heart attack, or having a stroke when compared to the other two groups.<\/p>\n
Women who started the treatment after menopause had a slightly lower risk of breast cancer and a heart attack compared to those who never took the hormones, according to researchers.<\/p>\n
However, these women were 4.9% more likely to have a stroke, the study found.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/5b918e6fdb04d5ccccc8c43b13efc37b.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
A white woman in her mid-50s applies an EvorelConti HRT patch to her upper leg. She is wearing white pants and standing in front of blue tiles. (Alamy\/PA)<\/p>\n
According to the NHS<\/a>, HRT can slightly increase the risk of breast cancer.<\/p>\n However, the risk is small, with around five extra cases of breast cancer in every 1,000 women who take HRT for five years.<\/p>\n Ify Chidi, lead author from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland<\/a>, said: \u201cThere has long been a debate about if and when oestrogen therapy should begin, so hopefully the use of large-scale electronic health record data will help resolve that question.<\/p>\n \u201cThe goal of this study was to explore whether oestrogen therapy could do more than relieve symptoms, and the results suggest that early initiation could be a key factor in reducing morbidity.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully, these results start a larger conversation about prevention in women\u2019s health. If we can better understand the effect of hormones throughout menopause, we can improve the quality of life and reduce disease burden.\u201d<\/p>\n The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (Nice<\/a>) advises that HRT should not be prescribed to patients on the NHS<\/a> with current, past or suspected breast cancer, or known or suspected oestrogen-dependent cancer.<\/p>\n The guidance suggests it should be given \u201cwith caution\u201d to women with a history of breast nodules or an increased risk of breast cancer.<\/p>\n The findings are being presented at the annual meeting of the Menopause Society in Orlando.<\/p>\n Dr Stephanie Faubion, medical director at the Menopause Society, said: \u201cThe findings of this study suggest lower risk and potentially greater benefit of oestrogen-based therapy when started in perimenopause.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the observational study design is subject to known potential biases such as healthy user bias, these results may pave the way for additional research on the risks and benefits of hormone therapy when initiated earlier in the menopause transition.\u201d<\/p>\n Reacting to the findings, Dr Kotryna Temcinaite, senior research and impact communications lead at Breast Cancer Now, said: \u201cWhether and when to start taking HRT to help with menopause symptoms is a very personal choice.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people might worry about how HRT can affect their breast cancer risk, but for most people the risk of developing breast cancer because of HRT is small \u2013 around 2 in every 100 breast cancers in the UK are thought to be linked to HRT.<\/p>\n \u201cWe already know that the risk of breast cancer is higher with combined HRT (containing oestrogen and progestogen) than with oestrogen-only HRT. It\u2019s also higher the longer you take HRT or if you started taking it at an older age.<\/p>\n \u201cThis research adds to ongoing discussions about the potential health impacts of oestrogen-only HRT and the timing of its use.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the findings are promising, we need to further understand whether oestrogen-only HRT itself is solely responsible for these effects.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women who use hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for at least a decade before their final period may see…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[11026,49,48,84,100176,2373,113215,113214,2372],"class_list":["post-240352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-breast-cancer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-hormone-replacement-therapy","tag-menopause","tag-oestrogen","tag-symptoms-of-perimenopause","tag-womens-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}