Brain autopsies reveal fewer Alzheimers signs in woman who took menopause drug

Fewer hot flashes and night sweats may not be the only upside.A new study suggests women taking a drug used to ease menopause symptoms may also face a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.The finding comes as scientists continue to investigate why women are more likely than men to develop the memory-robbing illness, with research indicating that their longer lifespan alone doesn’t fully account for the higher risk.The study looked at estrogen-based menopausal hormone therapy, or MHT — a prescription treatment that replaces estrogen after the body’s natural levels of the hormone plummet during the so-called “change of life.”For women dealing with uncomfortable symptoms related to the menopause transition, MHT can offer some much-needed relief.

But researchers at Stanford University wanted to know whether it may also have an effect on the brain.After all, MHT has had a complicated history.

Some earlier studies raised alarms that the treatment could increase the risk of dementia, especially when women started taking it later in life.The latest research, however, paints a very different picture.Scientists dug into two existing databases containing information on more than 21,000 women whose brains were examined after their deaths.They were looking for two telltale signs of Alzheimer’s: amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles.These abnormal proteins can gum up communication between brain cells and eventually contribute to cell death.The researchers then compared brain autopsies from 258 women who had reported taking estrogen-only MHT with those from roughly 2,701 women who had never used the treatment.They found that women who had taken estrogen-only MHT had a 35% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s during their lifetime than those who had not taken the medication.“MHT appears to exert a modest but meaningful and statistically significant protective effect on the risk of developing Alzheimer’s pathology,” Dr.

Jennifer Bruno, co-autho...