Some women are prescribed hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in the form of tablets, gels, creams or patches. to ease menopausal symptoms like hot flashes and mood swings, and to reduce post-menopausal risks of heart disease and osteoporosis.
However, not only is HRT associated with an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer, a new Oxford University study of more than 600,000 women found that the most common form of HRT (estrogen-progesteron hormones) for an extended period of time (more than 5 years) increases the risk of senile dementia by as much as 11% to 19%.
The Telegraph reports, Sept. 30, 2021:
The new study by the Universities of Oxford, Southampton and Nottingham published in BMJ is one of the largest, involving more than 600,000 women. It found that being on HRT for up to five years did not increase the risk of dementia….
However, the study found that staying on oestrogen-progesterone therapy for five to nine years increased the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 11 per cent, while staying on it for more than a decade increased the risk by 19 per cent….
Researchers compared 118,501 women aged 55 and older diagnosed with dementia between 1998 and 2020 with 497,416 women of the same age without the condition.
In each of the groups, 14 per cent of women used HRT for more than three years….
Another less common type of HRT was associated with a lower risk of dementia.
Oestrogen-only therapy was linked to 15 per cent decreased odds of dementia overall among women younger than 80 who received treatment for at least a decade, with a 1.1 per cent decrease in risk for each year of treatment.
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