While many women are happy to receive treatment for a condition that is bothering them now, far fewer want to take it to prevent something that may (or may not) happen some time in the future. This is a pity, because there are two serious conditions that are directly related to low levels of oestrogen after the menopause: arterial disease, which can lead to heart attack and stroke and is often fatal, and osteoporosis, which isn’t usually directly fatal, but which causes pain, deformity and a considerably reduced quality of life, and can be an indirect cause of death.
Neither of these diseases usually arises until several years after the ovaries have stopped producing oestrogen, but all women are potentially at risk from them the further they get in time from the menopause. The earlier you have the menopause (surgical or natural), the greater the proportion of your life without oestrogen, so the greater your risk of developing arterial disease and osteoporosis, and the more important it is that you are aware of these long-term consequences of low oestrogen and what you can do about it.
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