HRT started under the age of 60 or within 10 years of menopause can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. It’s protection is backed by evidence, in the coronary heart disease part of cardiovascular disease. The WHI, the Danish Study, the Elite trial are some of the supporting studies and there was a large Cochrane study with the same findings. Risk of stroke is different and currently transdermal HRT has not been found to increase the risk of stroke at standard doses, backed by a cohort study looking at 980 000 women. Oral HRT has a different risk profile and can slightly increase risk of stroke and VTE. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in women. Approximately 26k women die from this each year in the UK compared to 11k from breast cancer. In women who start HRT outside this age range there was no beneficial effect, but no harmful effect. There are lifestyle measures that also reduce the risk and these are important. I had a fabulous question in a menopause consultation yesterday. What is Cardiovascular Disease? What a great question, and there is little point advising people of risk, if they don’t fully understand what the words mean. What is a TIA? What is peripheral arterial disease? What happens in Angina? What is a Myocardial Infarction? We need to be absolute clear in language that everyone can fully understand when we discuss risk and benefit. Only with understanding can we fully counsel and bring about change to reduce our risk of Cardiovascular Disease, Metabolic Syndrome, Type 2 Diabetes etc... What is Diabetes? Do you know how it would affect your life were you to suffer from this? I feel so passionately about health prevention to reduce risk of these. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cardiovascular-disease/ I will put this link in my stories so you can look further at what these things mean and will do further posts. BP check, when was your last one? #perimenopausehealth #menopause #cardiovasculardisease #cholesterol #hrt #stroke #heartattack #tia #menopauseexercise #makemenopausematter #menopausehealth #bloodpressure #womenshealth #40andfit #40 #50