HRT increases chances of Alzheimer’s after just a year

Women who take HRT (hormone replacement therapy) for just a year increase their risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s.

They are 24 percent more likely to suffer from the disease later in life, researchers from Copenhagen University Hospital estimate.

The researchers are the first to discover that short-term use of HRT—even for less than a year—increases the risk of dementia.  Other studies have already established that people taking HRT longterm have a higher risk of developing the disease.

For the new study, the researchers recruited 55,890 healthy women who were taking oestrogen-progestin HRT and discovered that the risk increases with use: taking it for less than a year increases the risk 21 percent, and by 74 percent after taking it for 12 years or longer.

They also discovered that women who were aged 55 and younger faced a similar risk as older women when they first started taking HRT.

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