Taking HRT in midlife cuts dementia risk by a quarter, study suggests

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🗞️ Driving the news: Taking hormone replacement therapy around menopause may be associated with a substantially lower risk of dementia, with new UK research suggesting timing could be critical to any potential brain-health benefit

🔭 The context: Researchers from the University of East Anglia and University of Exeter analysed data from more than 183,000 post-menopausal women in UK Biobank, with almost 4,000 developing dementia over an average 13-year follow-up
• Overall, HRT use was associated with a 10% lower dementia risk and a 16% lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease
• Women who started HRT between ages 51 and 56 showed the strongest reduction in overall dementia risk, at 23%

🌍 Why it matters: The findings strengthen the “window of opportunity” theory, suggesting HRT may have different neurological effects when started during the menopause transition than when initiated years later
• This could help explain conflicting earlier studies, some of which examined women beginning treatment at age 65 or older
• Researchers caution that the study was observational and therefore cannot prove that HRT itself caused the lower dementia risk

⏭️ What’s next: Further clinical research will be needed to establish whether HRT can directly reduce dementia risk and to identify which women may benefit most based on treatment timing, menopause history and other individual factors

📈 One stat: Women who began HRT between ages 51 and 56 had a 23% lower risk of dementia than those who had never taken the treatment

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