Starting HRT earlier may help reduce dementia, Alzheimer’s risk

Medical News Today spoke with Sherry Ross, MD, a board certified OB/GYN and women’s health expert at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, about this study.

Ross commented that this was an exciting observational study as it looked at a substantial number of women over a long period of time and found an association between starting HRT earlier and a significant reduction in dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, a disease that disproportionately affects women.

“Gray matter in the brain has been found to have a key role in memory, sensory perception, information processing, emotion regulation, attention, decision making, executive functioning, language, and social cognition,” Ross, who was not involved in this study, explained. “During menopause, gray matter, and all that it does to allow us to function, think, feel, speak, and move normally, can be negatively affected.”