In a new study from the University of Arizona, researchers found women on hormone therapy were up to 58% less likely to develop neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease.
The findings could lead to the development of a precision medicine approach to preventing neurodegenerative diseases.
Hormone therapy is the most effective treatment for the symptoms of menopause, which can include hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, weight gain and depression.
In the study, the team examined the insurance claims of nearly 400,000 women aged 45 and older who were in menopause.
They focused on the effects of individual U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved hormone therapy medications, including estrogens and progestins, and combination therapies on neurodegenerative diseases.
Additionally, they evaluated the impacts of the type of hormone therapy, the route of administration—oral vs. through the skin—and the duration of therapy on the risk of developing disease.
They found that using the natural steroids estradiol or progesterone resulted in greater risk reduction than the use of synthetic hormones.
Women who underwent menopausal hormone therapy for six years or greater were 79% less likely to develop Alzheimer’s and 77% less likely to develop any neurodegenerative disease.
Oral hormone therapies resulted in a reduced risk for combined neurodegenerative diseases, while hormone therapies administered through the skin reduced the risk of developing dementia. The overall risk was reduced the most in patients 65 years or older.
Additionally, the protective effect of long-term therapy lasting longer than one year on Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and dementia was greater than with short-term therapy of less than one year.
This is not the first study on the impact of hormone therapies on neurodegenerative disease reduction.
But what is important about this study is that it advances the use of precision hormone therapies in the prevention of neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer’s.
The team says this reduction in risk for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s and dementia means these diseases share a common driver regulated by estrogen, and if there are common drivers, there can be common therapies.
The key is that hormone therapy is not a treatment, but it’s keeping the brain and this whole system functioning, leading to prevention. It’s not reversing disease; it’s preventing disease by keeping the brain healthy.
If you care about Alzheimer’s disease, please read studies about a new way to effectively prevent Alzheimer’s disease and findings of this midlife mental problem is risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.
For more information about Alzheimer’s and dementia, please see recent studies about new drug for Alzheimer’s disease prevention found safe and effective and results showing that these existing drugs may help combat Alzheimer’s disease.
The study is published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions. One author of the study is Roberta Diaz Brinton, Ph.D.
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