We know that women’s estrogen levels are correlated with lower risk of heart disease, and we know that hormone replacement therapy can raise those levels, so you might expect hormone replacement therapy to be protective against heart disease. And, indeed, that used to be conventional clinical wisdom. But the truth, as you’ve probably heard, is a lot more complicated. In the early 2000s, the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-term study involving a gigantic randomized clinical trial, reported that hormone replacement therapy with estrogen and progestin appeared actually to increase the risk of
...more
