Dr Caoimhe Hartley

Like there's risks of side effects too.

It's still a medication and you can run into trouble with side effects.

So we try to tease all of that out.

And sometimes the conclusion is do a trial of a few months and see what impact that has on how you feel and go from there.

But it's very individual.

And I agree with you.

I think the women over 60 in particular are sometimes there's a door closed in their face and it's a blanket no.

And I think that's wrong because there are women who would definitely fall on the side of the fence of more benefit than risk when you actually have the discussion with them.

And there's women who are maybe the other way around.

And like, if you look at what we know, we know that there's cardiovascular benefits.

So there's benefit to your blood vessels, your heart, to your risk of developing heart disease or how quickly that will happen if you start HRT under 60 or ideally within 10 years of your last period.

We used to tell women if you started over 60, we're increasing your heart attack risk, but that's gone.

So now we know if you're over 60, if you're more than 10 years from your last period, it's

your blood vessels have gone through an adaptation.

They've gone through a change because they've lost oestrogen.

And if we then put you on HRT, you might not get the benefit.

We can't slow down or reverse what's already happened, but you won't get an increased risk either.

Bones, there's no window of opportunity for bones.

So if you start HRT at 70, you're going to see some bone benefit.

Not as much as like the person where you intervene earlier and you're slowing down the bone loss, but you are still going to see some benefit for bones at any age.