A recent study indicates that women who take Hormone Replacement Therapy during menopause to treat hot flashes, can have a brain shrinkage after 65 years of age.

This is the second study that has suggested that HRT may be linked to dementia in women.

The researchers found that women who had taken estrogen had shrunken brains in areas that were associated with memory or thinking. The findings were ascertained after studying the MRI brain scans of women between 71 and 89. More precisely, the frontal lobe of the brain in these women shrunk up to 2.37 cubic centimeters and lower one in the hippocampus shrunk by 0.10 cubic centimeters.

Since both these regions are associated with thinking and memory skills, it could lead to dementia.

The risk factors were higher in women who were already having memory problems when they were put on HRT.