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Everything You Should Know About Hormone Therapy for Menopause

Anyone who gets a period will likely go through menopause too. But just because it’s a natural process, doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. Just when you reach the life stage where you should be throwing yourself a little party—no more riding the crimson wave, overpriced period products, or birth control, for that matter—you might be hit with hot flashes, painful sex, and other unpleasant symptoms. The good news? There are treatments, like hormone therapy (HT)—which is also known as hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or menopausal hormone therapy—that are perfectly appropriate for a lot of people. The bad news? There’s so much confusion and misinformation about who can take HT and what type is the…

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  Hormone Therapy Without the Black Box: What Women Need to Know

The bottom line: So, yes, concerns about the messaging of changing the label on hormone therapy are valid. And some touted benefits may be overblown. But increasing access to a treatment that could benefit millions of middle-aged women seems like a win for women’s health.

 Ding Dong, the HRT Black Box Warning is Dead!

For years, doctors prescribing hormone replacement therapy felt like drug dealers, their names whispered among well-connected women. Now they’re celebrating what might be the biggest advance in healthcare in our lifetime.

 Marty Makary: The FDA Liberates Women’s Hormone Replacement Therapy

It alleviates menopause symptoms and provides long-term health benefits, but it has mistakenly been associated with fatal breast cancer.

 The FDA will lift warnings on hormone therapy for menopause

The Food and Drug Administration says it is removing the black box safety warnings from all hormone therapy creams, pills and other treatments prescribed to ease the symptoms of menopause and perimenopause.

Articles of Interest

Here’s The Current Thinking On Hormone Therapy (It’s Not What You Heard 20 Years Ago)

Menopause symptoms aren’t only uncomfortable, but they can also impact a woman’s health, relationships and career. Although hormone therapy can reduce or eliminate menopause symptoms, most menopausal women don’t take advantage of hormones because of a decades-old study that warned of serious health risks. Although the thinking on hormones has changed, some women remain confused and afraid, and some medical doctors refuse to prescribe hormones.

Hormones for menopause are safe, study finds. Here's what changed

The benefits of hormone therapy for the treatment of menopause symptoms outweigh the risks. That's the conclusion of a new study published in the medical journal JAMA. "Among women below the age of 60, we found hormone therapy has low risk of adverse events and [is] safe for treating bothersome hot flashes, night sweats and other menopausal symptoms, " says study author Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital. This is a departure from the advice many women have been given in the past.

Hormone Replacement Skin Patches Don’t Raise Risk for Blood Clots

Oral H.R.T. increases the risk for blood clots, but transdermal hormone replacement doesn’t, a large analysis found.

HRT: What you should know about the benefits and risks

If you are thinking about taking Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) or wondering if you should be coming off it, or going back on to it, you will be aware that there continues to be debate about its safety..

Menopause treatments can help with hot flashes and other symptoms – but many people aren’t aware of the latest advances

Unfortunately, many patients and even health care providers aren’t fully aware of the latest evidence about effective treatments for menopausal symptoms. Rates of menopausal hormone therapy use varies by race and ethnicity: White women have the highest rates, while Black and Hispanic women have the lowest. Without insurance, a month’s supply of generic estrogen costs approximately $29. With insurance, costs may be much lower.

More women should take hormone-replacement therapy

It’s safer than people think and has large health benefits for many.

No need to fear menopause hormone drugs, finds major women’s health study

A landmark women’s health study scared women and doctors away from menopause hormone treatments. A 20-year follow-up found that fears were largely overblown. Now, more than 20 years later, a long-term follow-up of the women in the WHI suggests the drugs are a relatively safe option for the short-term treatment of menopause symptoms in women under 60. Hormones still aren’t recommended for long-term use to prevent heart attack, dementia or other chronic conditions.

The Best Time to Start Hormone Therapy for Menopause May Be Earlier Than You Think

A new analysis highlights surprising health perks beyond symptom relief.

The Long And Misunderstood History Of Hormone Replacement Therapy

While perhaps surprising, it is important to understand that testosterone is the dominant hormone in women. In fact, women have about 20 times more testosterone than estrogen. All estrogen in women is synthesized from testosterone or a testosterone-like hormone. Without testosterone, there is no estrogen.

The menopause myth: how demonised HRT came back from the brink

We need to normalise menopause, not be shamed by it. And women need to cast off their fear about treatment and feel empowered to seek help.

The new science of hormone therapy

Here's how the therapy containing estrogen and progesterone initially got a bad rap—and what the research says about its potential benefits.

Thinking About Menopause Hormone Therapy? Start Here.

Anxiety around the treatment persists, but so does recent enthusiasm. Here’s what experts want you to know.

Women Have Been Misled About Menopause

Hot flashes, sleeplessness, pain during sex: For some of menopause’s worst symptoms, there’s an established treatment. Why aren’t more women offered it?

Benefits of Hormone-Replacement Therapy Outweigh Risks, Reviews of Studies Show

The benefits of hormone-replacement therapy outweigh the risks for women who start it near menopause. That’s the conclusion of a series of articles in the June issue of Climacteric, the journal of the International Menopause Society, correcting a widespread impression left by the Women’s Health Initiative, or WHI, ten years ago.

Can Hormones Keep You Young?

I’ve been prescribing bioidentical hormones for years and can tell you miracles on both sides of the fence. For many of my patients, taking hormones at a low physiological dose along with other lifestyle changes is the answer to their prayers. Their lives absolutely turn around. But for others, taking extra hormones is too risky.

Do Hormone Treatments for Menopause Increase Dementia Risk?

A new study suggests a link, but experts caution that there’s more to the story.

Estrogen Replacement Therapy in Menopause

I’m going to come clean and tell you that until the last couple of years, I really didn’t understand the difference between bioidentical hormones and what we call synthetic hormones. I also didn’t know that bioidentical hormones have actually been around for a very long time – like, nearly 100 years. Surprised? I was too.

Everything we know about menopause and hormone replacement therapy (HRT)

The history of HRT is controversial. Here is the latest research.

F.D.A. Will Remove Black Box Warnings From Hormone Treatments for Menopause

The benefits of hormone replacement have been underappreciated, Dr. Marty Makary, the agency’s commissioner, said on Monday. Critics described evidence for the change as insufficient.

FAQs about Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)

The generation of women before us stopped taking HRT overnight after a 2003 report by the Women’s Health Initiative linked HRT with an increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease, blood clots and stroke. Overwhelming concern with the study's research methods and the conclusions, led to further analysis of this study and the overall safety of HRT. It’s now believed that the risks in this study were overstated or non-existent. Our doctor, Karen Morton says that it is ‘absolutely clear’ that the risks of taking HRT are ‘very, very minimal’.

FDA Strips Health Risk Warnings from Menopause Hormone Therapy

Experts say the FDA’s decision might make hormonal therapies more accessible to people with menopausal symptoms, which include hot flashes and night sweats. After the FDA added warning labels in 2003, research showed that the risks of cancer and metabolic disease were overstated and that this may have deterred both hormone therapy users and providers. But experts also caution that FDA’s new announcement, in turn, exaggerated the therapies’ benefits for other conditions.

Here's what you should know about hormone therapy for menopause

Like far too many aspects of women's health, menopause is under-studied. Much of our understanding of how to treat it comes from just a few large observational studies, and most of the public's information on treatments comes from one highly-publicized study.

Hormonal Replacement Therapy in Cancer Survivors: Safety, Benefits, and Clinical Guidelines

Hormonal Replacement Therapy (HRT) in the oncologic context refers to the administration of exogenous sex hormones—primarily estrogens, progestins, or androgens—to alleviate symptoms caused by hormone deficiency following cancer treatment. Unlike endocrine therapy, which aims to block or suppress hormone signaling to treat hormone-sensitive malignancies such as breast or prostate cancer, HRT is used to restore hormonal balance in survivors experiencing vasomotor symptoms, genitourinary atrophy, osteoporosis, or reduced quality of life due to iatrogenic hypogonadism.

Hormone Replacement Therapy Could Help Women Avoid Dementia—If It’s Taken at the Right Time

Delaying HRT could do more harm than good, a new study shows. Women are at much greater risk of dementia than men—as many as two thirds of people in the US with Alzheimer’s disease are women—and likely for a mix of reasons that experts are still parsing out. One of those unique risk factors is thought to be the hormone fluctuations of menopause, leading researchers to study whether hormone replacement therapy (HRT), which can level the hormonal playing field, might help. And according to a big new analysis presented at the 2025 American Neurological Association annual meeting, HRT can indeed lower dementia risk—but with one critical caveat: You have to take it early in menopause.

Hormone Therapy May Not Prevent Postmenopausal Brain Fog

New findings suggest that taking estrogen has no effect on brain performance, no matter how early or late women start taking it.

Hormone therapy, long shunned for a possible breast cancer link, is now seen as a short-term treatment for menopause symptoms

Look at the Internet ads and news headlines about menopausal hormone therapy and you’ll find two competing story lines: Taking hormones is either going to keep a woman young and solve all her menopause-related woes, or it’s going to give her breast cancer and other scary diseases. The truth is that neither narrative is universally correct.

Hormone-Replacement Therapy Seems Safe, Study Finds

"The pendulum had swung very far away from the use of hormone therapy for any purpose," said JoAnn Manson, a Harvard epidemiologist who was a principal investigator in both WHI and KEEPS. "But the absolute risk in younger women in early menopause appears to be very small."

HRT Has an Uncertainty Problem. Does Compounding Make It Worse?

The pendulum has swung back and forth on hormone replacement therapy. Bespoke and supposed more ‘natural’ hormone combinations put together by compounding pharmacists have become popular. Mainstream endocrinologists see compounding as risky, partly because the practitioners who prescribe it may not see the dangers.

HRT shows why health scares can’t be trusted

For much of the past 60 years HRT has been dogged by controversy. Now a recent scare has been re-evaluated.

Is hormone replacement therapy safe? An expert’s opinion

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is the medical equivalent of dinner-party conversations about politics and religion: a subject that draws opinions that are strong and divided—and is certain to evoke spirited debate. Conflicting clinical data and discrepancies among studies have left the medical community with little to agree on, and many women wondering whether it’s safe to consider HRT to alleviate the often-difficult symptoms of menopause, such as hot flashes, fatigue, bone loss, vaginal dryness, painful intercourse and difficulty sleeping.

Jeanette Winterson: can you stop the menopause?

After two years of mental breakdown, I was physically depleted, unable to sleep and my hair was falling out. Was my only choice HRT? Or was there a natural alternative?

Menopausal Hormone Therapy and Cancer Risk

The decision to use estrogen, alone (ET) or with a progestin therapy (EPT), after menopause should be made by each woman and her doctor after weighing the possible risks and benefits. Things to think about include: • The woman’s baseline risk of breast, endometrial, ovarian, and other types of cancer, and how much this might be affected by hormone therapy • The risks of other serious conditions affected by hormone therapy that aren’t covered here, like heart disease, stroke, serious blood clots, and effects on the brain • What other medicines might be used to treat menopausal symptoms or osteoporosis instead

Menopausal Hormone Therapy Information

New findings from the Women's Health Initiative and other studies offer important information about the risks and benefits of long-term menopausal hormone therapy. The links below point to information resources, including the most current from the NIH, on both long-term and short-term hormone use, and other concerns related to women's health during and after menopause.

Menopause - No Flashy Answers

It's nearly impossible to make a decision about Hormone Replacement on your own. The data continues to conflict and so much of the decision is based on individual circumstances.

Millions of women are missing out on hormone replacement therapy

This much-maligned treatment could save many lives.

Muddled Guidance At Menopause

Summary judgment against HR is unfounded, misguided, and leads only to the perpetuation of a vintage mistake in new directions. I encourage the Task Force to reconsider this topic accordingly. In the interim, I advise a discussion with your provider about what’s right for you, to find a personalized path through the prevailing muddle.

No evidence that plant-based alternatives to HRT actually work

It’s no surprise that many women seek an alternative approach. Plant-based phytoestrogens, which resemble the body’s own form of the hormone, are found in foods such as soybeans and flax seed (linseed), and can bind to oestrogen receptors in the body. Many have long assumed that these compounds are good for us – they have even been thought to underlie the long and healthy lives of Japanese people, who tend to eat a lot of soy products.

No One Really Understands How to Treat Menopause

Hormone therapy is a tangled mess of risks, benefits, and side effects that even doctors have difficulty unraveling.

Reprising The Wrong Verdict For Hormone Replacement At Menopause

The right hormone replacement at menopause for the right women can prevent premature death. It can prevent the diseases, notably coronary artery disease, that precipitate premature death, too.

Rethinking the Use of Hormones to Ease Menopause Symptoms

Ever since the large government study called the Women’s Health Initiative found a number of risks associated with menopause hormones, millions of women who are in or near menopause have been weathering hot flashes and other symptoms on their own. But now, new research suggests that the benefits of short-term hormone treatment to control life-disrupting menopausal symptoms outweigh the risks — as long as the treatment is started at or near menopause.

Sex hormones and your heart

Here's the latest thinking about how estrogen or testosterone therapy may affect cardiovascular risk.

Suzanne Somers’ Legacy Tainted by Celebrity Medical Misinformation

But Somers drew criticism for urging women to defy the medical establishment. She revealed she had skipped chemotherapy against the advice of her doctor. She also championed potentially risky “bioidentical hormones,” which she touted as a more natural alternative to pharmaceutical treatments for menopause. Somers went on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to describe an elaborate daily routine, which involved injecting hormones into her vagina and taking 60 pills a day in an effort to remain young-looking and sexy.

Taking Hormones for Menopause Doesn’t Raise Early Death Risk

The largest and longest clinical trials to date of menopausal hormone therapy have found that the drugs do not increase the risk of premature death.

The Controversial History of Hormone Replacement Therapy

In the following years, a reanalysis of the WHI trial was performed, and new studies showed that the use of HRT in younger women or in early postmenopausal women had a beneficial effect on the cardiovascular system, reducing coronary disease and all-cause mortality. Notwithstanding this, the public opinion on HRT has not changed yet, leading to important negative consequences for women’s health and quality of life.

The Incredible, Life Enhancing Importance of Our Hormones

Why not be proactive and do something about it while we can? After all, we have a 401k and IRA for our future financial status. Why not have a proactive plan for our health so we can go the distance?

Using Hormone Therapy Early May Prevent Heart Disease, Study Finds

Women in study who began hormone-replacement therapy shortly after menopause had less progression of atherosclerosis.

Why Every 20-Something Should Know More About Their Hormones

“You can’t change something you aren’t even aware of,” underscores Tolentino. “Hormone testing will show you where you stand.” Allowing you to see whether you’re producing the right hormones at the right times, as well as highlighting deficiencies that may need to be addressed, tracking the balance of your hormones through medical tests whether by blood, saliva, or urine can have a great long-term impact on important personal issues, like fertility.

Yet Another Pellet Sufferer. Stop the Madness

Pellets are such a bad idea. They simply don’t make sense based on the biochemistry of our bodies. As we age and our hormone levels decrease, we need to replenish our hormones by refilling our hormone receptors of estrogen, progesterone and testosterone with physiological dosing of bioidentical customized compounded hormone creams ….exactly what our bodies need based on viable testing (not blood labs).

‘She will not become dull and unattractive’: The charming history of menopause and HRT

HRT was first successfully marketed as a ‘cure’ for menopause in the 1940s before a misreported study crashed sales in 2002.

Resources

5 Things to Know About Menopause and Hormone Therapy

There has long been an effective, F.D.A.-approved treatment for some menopausal symptoms, but too few women have a clear picture of its risks and benefits.

MenoPro App

MenoPro is a free mobile app from The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) to help clinicians and women work together to personalize treatment decisions based on a woman’s personal preferences (hormonal vs nonhormonal options), taking into account her medical history and risk factor status.

HRT Guidelines

Principles of hormone replacement therapy.

MayoClinic

Hormone therapy is no longer recommended for disease prevention, such as heart disease or memory loss. However, further review of clinical trials and new evidence show that hormone therapy may be a good choice for certain women, depending on their risk factors.

MedicineNet

It is recommended that women who do choose to take hormone therapy should take the lowest effective dose for the shortest time period possible.

MedlinePlus

Some women take hormone replacement therapy (HRT), also called menopausal hormone therapy, to relieve these symptoms. HRT may also protect against osteoporosis. However, HRT also has risks. It can increase your risk of breast cancer, heart disease, and stroke. Certain types of HRT have a higher risk, and each woman's own risks can vary depending upon her health history and lifestyle.

Patient

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can be an effective treatment for the typical menopause-related symptoms. There are also other long-term health problems associated with the menopause: the risk of osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and stroke all increase after the menopause. HRT may also have an influence on these health problems.

ScienceDaily

Your source for the latest research news.