The dental health study found that risks for tooth loss and edentia, or loss of all teeth, are lower for estrogen users than for non-users. And if you've taken estrogen for over 15 years, your risk is only about 50 percent. ERT has been previously shown to decrease the risk of osteoporosis in older women.
Osteoporosis can cause fractures to bones like wrists and hips and also weaken the jawbone.
Furthermore, women with osteoporosis are three times more likely to loose teeth than healthy women the same age. Estrogen replacement and better dental health may eventually reduce this cost. They're a very cooperative health-conscious group, and a large portion of the women have used estrogen replacement therapy, so we can easily study its effect. Paganini-Hill spends most of her time at the Orange County community, collecting study data and keeping track of active participants. In the past several years, her group has studied the effect of estrogen replacement therapy on conditions like Alzheimer's disease, osteoporosis, and heart disease.