Alzheimer's disease, dementia treatment: Hormone replacement therapy offers ray of hope, claims study
hormone replacement therapy may have a protective effect on the female brain, reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease and dementia. However, this protection is more significant when hormones are initiated during the 40s and 50s, coinciding with the onset of menopausal symptoms, as per a report.
The level of protection offered may vary depending on the type of hormones used.
On average, menopause onset, defined as 12 consecutive months without a period, occurs at around 51 years of age, although it can naturally happen between 40 and 58 years of age. Perimenopausal symptoms, including hot flashes, night sweats, sleep disturbances, libido changes, heart palpitations, and vaginal discomfort, may begin years before menopause, as per the CNN report.
The analysis, recently published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, indicates that initiating hormone replacement therapy shortly after the onset of menopausal symptoms provides the brain with a higher likelihood of protection, CNN reported.
If a woman commenced hormone replacement therapy during menopause and continued it for over a decade, there was a 26 per cent lower likelihood of developing dementia, as per a CNN report.
Meanwhile, a metabolic rise in an area of the brain called the hippocampus is an early stage in the development of Alzheimer's disease, according to Karolinska Institutet researchers in a study published in Molecular Psychiatry.
The revelation opens the door to new potential early intervention strategies.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia and strikes about 20,000 people in Sweden every year. Researchers now show that a metabolic increase in the mitochondria, the cellular power plants, is an early indicator of the
