Jennifer Gunter

But I would say that the way I would summarize the WHIF

or everybody, is this is really great evidence that hormones aren't going to hurt you.

And it's also really great evidence that they're not going to make you live forever.

And so if you need them for symptoms, then yeah, you should take them for symptoms.

If they're good for you, if you're at high risk for osteoporosis, then they're a very acceptable alternative for that.

But we don't have this data on reduction of all-cause mortality or reducing heart disease or reducing dementia.

When we look at the estrogen-only trial alone, the permanent arm, after the initial trial was ended, we did see this emergence of a reduced incidence of breast cancer risk and mortality with combined equine estrogens alone.

But people have to remember, it's a very unique drug.

It's got selective estrogen receptor modulators in it.

And so it's not the same as giving somebody estradiol.

And so that's a really interesting finding for conjugated equine estrogens.

And that might be an indication for

you know, a very, very specific use of that drug for people at higher risk of breast cancer, we might say maybe that's going to be a better alternative for you.

But I just think it's important that it's, you know, two regimens that we don't use now and that we don't see sort of the claimed benefits that the McCary is making from that trial.

Well, I would say no.

They're not the wrong women.

So the WHI was designed to answer the question, can menopause hormone therapy reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease and not increase the risk of breast cancer?

Basically, that's the summary of it.

Because at the time, and as somebody who was practicing at the time, we believed that we could give menopausal hormone therapy to women in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and even 80s and reduce the risk of heart disease.

So people were doing that.