Hormone Therapy May Slow Biological Aging in Older Women

Postmenopausal women who have used hormone replacement therapy may be biologically younger than their counterparts who have never used this treatment, a new study suggests.

Biological age focuses on how well your body functions instead of how old you are chronologically. The decline in the hormone estrogen that naturally occurs during menopause is one of many factors that can accelerate biological aging in women, making them older than their chronological years, says study coauthor Yufan Liu of Capital Medical University in Beijing.

“Since estrogen has protective effects on various body systems, a drop in estrogen levels during menopause would accelerate biological aging,” Liu says.

The study suggests that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) could help put on the brakes, potentially slowing functional deterioration, preventing major diseases, and improving longevity, Li says.