
Illustration by The Epoch Times/Shutterstock
This is what most women don’t know about hormone replacement therapy (HRT): Timing matters more than age. The key isn’t whether you’re 45 or 55 when you start HRT; it’s when you start relative to your menopause transition.
This concept, called the “therapeutic window” or “timing hypothesis,” accounts for nearly all of the modern controversy surrounding hormones. The wrong therapy, given to the wrong patients, at the wrong time, created decades of confusion.
‘Everything Feels Like It’s Slipping’
A few months ago, Laura (not her real name), 49, walked into my office with that mixture of hesitation and hope that is so common in midlife patients.

