We will examine the condition of their arteries before, during and after therapy, and compare it to women on no therapy to see if the hormones cause or prevent changes leading to heart disease.

These new findings suggest the possibility that if a woman starts hormone therapy sooner rather than later, perhaps we will see some of the protective effects on the heart that natural estrogen provides - or at least it won't increase the risk of cardiovascular-related harm.

Together with that was the women who were receiving hormone therapy had a greater occurrence of leg clots, deep vein leg thrombosis and a sizeable increase in gall bladder disease. So we began to see adverse effects and no benefit, and this really raised concern,

I think for people who were not convinced of the risk, this provides further evidence.

We really need to understand more about why some of the studies in this area still seem to disagree.

These benefits were seen in women who had consistently used hormone therapy and had been in menopause for at least five years.