Ep. 23: Why we’re so confused about perimenopause and hormone therapy

Hormone therapy has a complicated history. We’ve heard hormone therapy causes cancer and we’ve heard it is perfectly safe. This episode sets the record straight. We unpack the Women’s Health Initiative and why it has been so widely misunderstood, why poor methods led to misleading analysis and how the misinformation has resulted in widespread confusion. Emily asks the country’s top perimenopause and menopause experts.  Dr. Jan Shifren is the director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Midlife Women's Health Center along with a professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Marcie Richardson, who was featured in last week’s episode, is an OB-GYN at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Newton-Wellesley Hospital with four decades of experience. We also hear about research done by a University of Guelph professor, Glen Pyle, that’s beginning to look at how starting hormone therapy during perimenopause may protect the heart.