For twenty years, hormone therapy carried a cloud of fear. A single study in the early 2000s scared a generation of women — and their doctors — away from it. But the science has moved on dramatically, and in 2026 hormone therapy is having a genuine resurgence. Prescriptions have more than doubled in recent years, and many experts now describe it, for the right women at the right time, as preventive medicine. If you wrote off HRT years ago based on something you half-remember hearing, here's what the current picture actually looks like.