Heart disease is the commonest cause of death in women, far more so than cancer, even breast cancer.

 Heart disease is rare in women prior to menopause thanks to the protective effects of ovarian hormones, even in those women who are members of families with extremely high cholesterol levels, so ovarian estrogen clearly protects women in a  natural way from heart disease. But whereas giving natural non-oral estradiol to castrated female primates massively protects them against heart disease, the oral equine estrogen's used in the WHIM study failed to do so. The investigators concluded that HRT surprisingly fails to prevent heart disease, negating thousands of years of history, but instead of condemning the estrogen's as an overall group they should have realized they had given the wrong form of estrogen by way of the wrong, oral route.  Bottom line is that non-oral estradiol, only however, when administered in a stable form at the right, individualized dosage, is remarkable at reducing hardening of the arteries, heart attack & stroke, without increasing the rate of clot risks.