They Changed Their Mind: What the FDA’s Menopause Hormone Warning Reversal Really Means

Hourglass and green leaves beside the words “They Changed Their Mind,” illustrating a change in the conversation about menopause hormone therapy.

WOMEN’S HEALTH  •  MENOPAUSE

What women were never told about hormone therapy

By Corinne Furnari, PA, CDN

For more than 20 years, one message dominated the conversation about menopause hormone therapy: Be afraid.

This message was not limited to women in their 50s, 60s, or 70s. Women of every age heard the simplified claim that estrogen causes cancer. Many clinicians stopped prescribing it. Many women were told to endure hot flashes, sleepless nights, vaginal dryness, painful sex, urinary symptoms, mood changes, and accelerating bone loss because hormone therapy was simply “too dangerous.”

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