What Happens During Menopause
Menopause is the time in a woman’s life when she stops having periods because her body isn’t making certain hormones anymore. This usually happens around the age of 50.
Lots of women feel symptoms like getting hot flashes or feeling moody. To feel better, some women take extra hormones, known as hormone therapy.
Different Types, Different Risks
New research looked at more than 112,000 women who are 45 or older and taking hormone therapy. This study focused on women taking estrogen-only treatments, which is one type of hormone therapy.
Estrogen comes in different forms, like pills, skin creams, and suppositories. A suppository is a little pellet that you put inside your body, in this case, in the vagina.
The study found out that women who took their hormone therapy as a pill were more likely to have high blood pressure than women who used a skin cream or suppository.
For example, if you take a pill, you have a 14% higher chance of having high blood pressure compared to using a skin cream, and a 19% higher chance compared to using a suppository.
And not all pills are the same. There are two main kinds: estradiol, which is like the hormone your body makes; and conjugated equine estrogen, which comes from horses.
The research showed that women taking the horse-derived pill had an 8% higher chance of having high blood pressure than those taking estradiol.
So, what does this mean? Well, the longer you use hormone therapy or the higher the dose, the greater your chance of high blood pressure. But remember, hormone therapy can also help you feel better during menopause.
What’s Next: More Studies Needed
This study is not the final word. For one thing, it only looked at older women taking estrogen-only pills. It didn’t look at younger women, women with a uterus, or those who started menopause early.
Also, the study looked only at women in Canada, so we can’t say for sure if the findings apply to everyone.
The researchers want to do more studies to look at other kinds of hormone therapy. They want to find out about therapies that use both estrogen and another hormone called progestin.
Final Takeaway
Taking hormone therapy for menopause is a personal choice. Each woman should talk to her doctor about what might work best for her.
Hormone therapy can help you feel better, but it’s also good to know the risks, like high blood pressure. This research tells us that the type and form of hormone therapy can make a difference.
So, you might want to consider lower doses or using a skin cream or suppository instead of a pill.
The goal is to find the safest and most effective way to manage menopause symptoms.
As we get more information from future research, women will have a better understanding of their options during this important time in their lives.
If you care about high blood pressure, please read studies about a common and unrecognized cause of high blood pressure, and this small habit can greatly benefit people with high blood pressure, cholesterol.
For more information about blood pressure, please see recent studies about how to keep high blood pressure in check, and results showing these people more likely to have uncontrolled high blood pressure.
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