Research
Hormonal
Postmenopausal hormone therapy provides the greatest mortality benefit for women with existing cardiovascular risk factors.
If you are postmenopausal and have cardiovascular risk factors (such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, or diabetes), hormone therapy may offer a significant reduction in your risk of death, primarily by reducing heart disease mortality. This benefit is much larger than for women with low cardiovascular risk.
GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Current hormone users with coronary risk factors (69 percent of the women) had the largest reduction in mortality (relative risk, 0.51; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.45 to 0.57)
Why this rating
Same high-quality observational study design.
Source
Postmenopausal Hormone Therapy and Mortality
Francine Grodstein et al. · New England Journal of Medicine · 1997
DOI 10.1056/nejm199706193362501
cohort · n=39734Cited 1,190×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Current postmenopausal hormone therapy is associated with a significantly lower risk of all-cause mortality compared to never use, primarily driven by reduced coronary heart disease mortality.Good
- The mortality benefit of postmenopausal hormone therapy is attenuated with long-term use (10+ years) due to an increased risk of breast cancer mortality.Good
Related findings · Hormonal
- Initial treatment for type 2 diabetes should be a combination of metformin and either an SGLT-2 inhibitor or a GLP-1 receptor agonist to achieve cardiorenal protection, rather than monotherapy or older agents like sulfonylureas.Strong
- For patients with specific monogenic obesity syndromes (leptin deficiency, POMC/PCSK1/LEPR mutations), targeted pharmacotherapy (recombinant leptin or setmelanotide) is highly effective and should be prioritized, unlike in polygenic obesity.Strong
- Continued weekly administration of 2.4 mg subcutaneous semaglutide prevents weight regain and promotes further weight loss in adults with overweight or obesity, whereas switching to placebo results in significant weight regain.Strong
This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →