Here’s a scary fact (based on research out of Mass General Brigham): If a woman has early menopause, the later she starts hormone therapy, the greater her risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

Quoth one of the study’s authors:

“We found that the highest levels of tau, a protein involved in Alzheimer’s disease, were only observed in hormone therapy users who reported a long delay between age at menopause onset and their initiation of hormone therapy.”

Said another, a bit more bluntly, “When it comes to hormone therapy, timing is everything.”