In this episode, Rachel and Ashleigh dive deeper into the topic of hormone replacement therapy for women, attempting to clear up some misconceptions and provide information for listeners to better inform their own further research. (As a reminder, this episode does not contain medical advice and is meant for general information and entertainment purposes only.)

The ladies cover topics including:

• Some common misconceptions around the health risks of HRT for women, and where these misconceptions stemmed from;
• An overview of The Women’s Health Initiative, the largest-ever hormone replacement therapy clinical trial, the results that came from it and the limitations and issues with this study;
• The differences between synthetic and bio-identical hormones;
• Some concluding thoughts on how to conduct your own research and speak to your care provider if you're interested in learning more about HRT.

If you have topic ideas or questions for the hosts, send them to musclescience4women@gmail.com.

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Further reading and resources:

1. Estrogen Matters by Avrum Bluming, MD (a breast oncologist) and Carol Tavris, PhD. They dive deep into this topic, debunking the estrogen myth, and cite over 400 references in their book.
2. Happy Healthy Hormones by Dr. Daved Rosensweet, MD. A deep dive into hormones, menopause, BHRT (bioidentical HRT), and much more.

Clark JH. A critique of Women's Health Initiative Studies (2002-2006). Nucl Recept Signal. 2006 Oct 30;4:e023. doi: 10.1621/nrs.04023. PMID: 17088939; PMCID: PMC1630688.

Writing Group for the Women's Health Initiative Investigators. Risks and Benefits of Estrogen Plus Progestin in Healthy Postmenopausal Women: Principal Results From the Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Trial. JAMA. 2002;288(3):321–333. doi:10.1001/jama.288.3.321

Cagnacci, Angelo, and Martina Venier. 2019. "The Controversial History of Hormone Replacement Therapy" Medicina 55, no. 9: 602. https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina55090602