The bones begin to break down more rapidly and lose calcium. This leads to loss of bone, a condition called osteopenia, and later to a more severe loss called osteoporosis. With osteoporosis, women lose height as bones in the spine break or shrink in height. Finally, painful spine fractures or hip fractures may occur when an elderly woman falls. Lack of estrogen speeds up the development of heart disease.
Women begin to catch up to men in their risk of having a heart attack.
This risk increases because of the lack of estrogen. Death from heart disease is about eight times more common than death from breast cancer in women. This is particularly true of older women, because heart disease affects women who are in their 60s to 90s, whereas breast cancer often occurs earlier in life. Several other conditions are thought to occur more commonly after menopause in women who do not take estrogen. Alzheimer's disease and colon cancer are two conditions that are more common.