Some women sail through menopause without experiencing any of these symptoms, but for other women menopausal symptoms, which can continue for several years after menopause, can be debilitating. For these women, menopausal hormone therapy (MHT, previously known as hormone replacement therapy, or HRT)—treatment with various combinations and types of estrogen and progesterone—can be prescribed during or after the menopausal transition to manage their troublesome symptoms.
Why Was This Study Done?
Although MHT has helped many women deal with their menopausal symptoms, it can increase a woman’s risk of heart disease, stroke, blood clots, and breast cancer. There is also some evidence that MHT increases the risk of cognitive decline (decline in thinking, language, memory, understanding, and judgment) and dementia in women who start taking MHT after the age of 65. However, other evidence suggests that MHT might enhance cognition and mood if it is given at menopause rather than later. In this randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial (the KEEPS-Cog trial, an ancillary study of the Kronos Early Estrogen Prevention Study, which examined the effect of MHT on cardiovascular health), the researchers investigate the effects of up to four years of MHT on cognition and mood in recently postmenopausal women living in the US. A randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial compares the outcomes of participants assigned an active intervention or a placebo (dummy) intervention through the play of chance; in a double-blinded trial, neither the researchers nor the participants know who is receiving which treatment until the trial ends.
What Did the Researchers Do and Find?
In the KEEPS-Cog trial, 220 healthy recently postmenopausal women took an estrogen pill every day and a progesterone pill for the first 12 days of each month, 211 women wore an estradiol patch (transdermal estradiol) and took a progesterone pill for the first 12 days of each month, and 262 women received placebo patches and pills for up to four years (the average follow-up was a little less than three years). The researchers assessed the trial participants for their overall cognitive health using an instrument called the Modified Mini-Mental State Examination, for four specific cognitive functions using several established instruments, for depression symptoms using the Beck Depression Inventory, and for mood using the Profile of Mood States instrument at baseline and at 18, 36, and 48 months. Statistical analysis of the data collected indicates that, during the trial, there were no treatment-related effects on cognition or depression symptoms. However, women treated with estrogen pills and progesterone (but not those treated with estradiol patches and progesterone) showed improvements in some mood symptoms compared to women in the placebo group.
What Do These Findings Mean?
Before starting their trial, the researchers hypothesized that, because the body handles different formulations and types of estrogen in different ways, transdermal estradiol but not oral estrogen would improve cognition and mood in recently postmenopausal women when compared to placebo. Notably, the findings suggest that MHT does not alter cognition as hypothesized and that oral rather than transdermal estrogen has a small to moderate beneficial effect on mood. Importantly, these findings provide no information about the effects of MHT beyond four years and, because most of the women in the study were white, well-educated, and at low risk of cardiovascular disease, may not be applicable to the general postmenopausal population of the US and of other countries. Moreover, because MHT improved menopausal symptoms in the women receiving hormones, the trial was not truly double-blinded. However, despite these and other study limitations, the researchers suggest that their findings could now be used to help women make more informed decisions about whether to use MHT to manage their menopausal symptoms.