Should women take hormone therapy for menopause? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Women who don’t have symptoms like hot flashes during menopause shouldn’t take hormone therapy, a federal task force finds. Hormones don’t seem to reduce cardiovascular risk or cognitive decline and may be associated with some harms. Wen Shen, a menopause expert at Johns Hopkins, says new data should also be considered.

Shen: They were still mostly going back to the WHI data, which is twenty years ago. Come on guys. So there are clinical trials that have shown that there are preventive benefits of menopause hormone therapy. Most definitely for women who have osteoporosis. If a woman has osteoporosis, her mom had osteoporosis, that family history, then being on hormone therapy is a form of helping her bone health.  :30

Shen notes that each woman needs to be assessed individually regarding risks and benefits. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.