Estrogen Therapy and Alzheimer's Signs

Scientists published a new study. It is in the Neurology Journal. They studied brains after death. The brains came from 368 women on estrogen therapy.

They also studied 4,649 women without it. All the women were over 50. Estrogen is a hormone, a chemical in the body. Estrogen therapy gives women this hormone as medicine.

Women on estrogen therapy had 35 percent fewer brain changes. The changes are linked to Alzheimer's disease. This disease harms the brain.

Dementia is a loss of memory and thinking. Women on estrogen therapy had a 39 percent lower chance of being told they had dementia. They also had a 33 percent lower chance of worse memory and daily problems.

The scientists found only a link. They did not prove that estrogen therapy lowered the risk.

The study only compared old data. The scientists did not give women hormones by chance or watch them over time.

Tatyana Toroptseva is a women's health doctor at the DocMed clinic. She said that only a doctor can decide. The decision is about whether a woman needs hormone therapy during menopause, the time when her monthly periods stop.