HRT + depression...

...there's good news and bad news

Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

A large, long-term study in Denmark, published in Jama Network Open, `found some women who took systemic hormone therapy before and during menopause had a greater risk of depression. The risk was particularly elevated in the year after treatment was begun, leading the researchers to recommend women be made aware that depression can be an adverse effect of going on HRT. The findings were consistent whether the hormone therapy used was just estrogen alone – the study does not distinguish between synthetic or bioidentical/body identical forms – or estrogen plus progestin, which is the synthetic form of progesterone. (Reminder: Bioidentical progesterone is made from yams, and is closest to what our body makes – and is increasingly looking like the smarter, safer choice whether alone or paired with estrogen, for a whole bunch of reasons I’m going to cover in a future post). 

The study involved statistical analysis of a nationwide register of women between th…