Study finds that hormone therapy for menopause slows biological aging

Hormone therapy can help relieve menopausal symptoms like hot flashes and vaginal dryness, but it may also have another surprising benefit: slowing biological aging.

A new study published in JAMA Network Open found that women who received hormone therapy were biologically younger than those who never received the therapy. Researchers found that women who started hormone therapy after age 55 or who received hormone therapy for four to eight years experienced a slower rate of biological aging.

Menopause is a natural process of aging and marks the end of a woman’s menstrual cycle. Menopause usually occurs around age 51, after a transitional period (perimenopause) that lasts between 7 and 14 years. During this time, hormone levels fluctuate, causing unpleasant symptoms like hot flashes, depression, pain during sex, and trouble sleeping. Some women use hormone therapy, also called hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or menopausal hormone therapy (MHT), to relieve menopausal symptoms.

However, hormone therapy may increase the risk of certain cancers, blood clots, heart attack, and stroke, so these treatments are not recommended for everyone.

“Despite concerns about hormone therapy (HT) for postmenopausal women, our findings highlight that promoting HT may be an option for achieving comprehensive healthy aging,” Chengrong Li, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Health Data Science, Peking University, and co-author of the study, told Verywell in an email.

Do you age faster after menopause?

During menopause, the ovaries stop producing eggs and hormones, specifically estrogen and progesterone. A 2016 study linked these hormonal changes to accelerated biological aging, finding that earlier menopause also speeds up the aging process.

This new research suggests that hormone therapy may slow this process, but because it is an observational study, it does not prove that hormone therapy directly slows biological aging.

Menopause can cause many biological changes that reduce your quality of life, including memory loss, increased risk of urinary tract infections, heart disease, and osteoporosis (loss of bone density).

Evidence on the efficacy of hormone therapy for heart disease is mixed, but it is known to help prevent osteoporosis.

“Bone thickness reaches its peak around age 18 to 20 and then declines slowly and steadily. In the absence of hormone replacement therapy, bone thickening accelerates during menopause,” Robert P. Kaufman, MD, MSCP, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center College of Medicine, told Verywell in an email.

Can hormone therapy help you look and feel younger?

For many people, menopause and declining estrogen levels lead to dry, sagging skin and hair loss. Limited observational studies suggest that hormone therapy may help reverse signs of skin aging, but more research is needed to confirm this.

“Modern medicine doesn’t make sense to prescribe HRT to prevent wrinkles or make you look younger,” Kaufman said, but he noted that some women have seen improvements in their skin health with the treatment.

While hormone therapy may not make you look younger, it can ease the symptoms of menopause and, for some, improve their sleep, mood, and make them feel more relaxed.

“Women who have trouble sleeping because of hot flashes or bone pain often say that HRT helps them think clearly, and that makes sense if it improves the quality of their sleep,” Kaufman says.

Currently, hormone therapy remains a treatment option for menopausal symptoms rather than a preventative measure for age-related symptoms, and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends against using this therapy to prevent chronic postmenopausal symptoms.