Is It Safe to Stay on Hormone Therapy After 65? What Research Actually Shows.

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Breaking news from the Journal of the Menopause Society. Women should never be told that they must stop hormone therapy at any particular age. This study reviewed the data on 10 million Medicare recipients. What they found should shock you. They looked at women who had used menopause hormone therapy past the age of 65 and women who had never been given menopausal hormone therapy. They also looked at dosage and the type and formulation. And this study is why I tell my patients I might die with an estradiol patch on. Let's get into the details. So for patients on estrogen alone who continue their therapy past the age of 65, they found significant risk reductions in breast cancer, lung cancer, colorectal cancer, congestive heart failure, venous thromboembolism, atrial fibrillation, acute myocardial infarction or heart attack, and dementia. For patients on estrogen plus a progestogen therapy, they saw risk reductions in endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer, ischemic congestive heart failure, venous thromboembolism.

[00:01:03]So for Medicare women continuing their hormone therapy over the age of 65, low dose does appear to have better outcomes and transdermal options are better than oral for estrogen.

[00:01:16]Also, estradiol seems superior to conjugated estrogens.