The Lancet Commission on dementia does not recommend menopause hormone therapy to prevent dementia

Your weekend roundup of hopefully helpful things

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The 2024 update of the Lancet Commission on dementia tackled menopause hormone therapy (MHT) as a preventative for dementia for the first time this summer. (I don’t blame you if you haven’t heard about this, or this news makes you go whaaa? I’ll explain)

Their post-menopause conclusion after a meta-analysis of almost two dozen studies? They do not recommend MHT to prevent dementia. In fact, the authors say hormone therapy is actually associated with a small but statistically significant increased risk of dementia. This goes for estrogen-only therapy too.

The writers concluded: “Overall, it is unclear whether menopause and HRT are causally related to dementia risk. There is some evidence that oestrogen-only therapy, long durations of treatment, and older age at initiation of HRT, might increase dementia risk.”

Other than the obvious, here’s why this is important:

» First off, it doesn’t mean if you take hormone therapy, you’ll get dementia. Science doesn…