Hormone Therapy - link to brain shrinkage in women
January 16th 2009 02:03
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Women seem to get it pretty tough. Many are placed by their medical practitioners on hormone therapy, now some other adverse consequences are emerging, draw no comfort from the fact that women live longer than men, that was because most men used to smoke, now it's women lead the increase in smokers.
So what else can a woman do?
Look after your health with exercise and nutrition and stress reduction if you ask me.
But the following article tells the story.
It's from Medical News to-day
US researchers found that hormone replacement therapies (HRT) commonly prescribed to treat symptoms of menopause were linked to slightly faster loss of brain tissue in areas important for thinking and memory in women aged 65 and over. However, it is possible that any links with increased risk of dementia were only relevant to those women who were already experiencing symptoms when they started on HRT said the researchers.
The research comes from two studies reporting findings from a substudy of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) landmark Women's Health Initiative (WHI) hormone therapy clinical trials called the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study and that appear as companion papers in the 13 January issue of Neurology.
Previous research showed that HRT comprising conjugated equine estrogens (CEEs, used extensively in HRT), with or without progestin, made it more likely that older women on these treatments would have more difficulty with thinking and memory, and experience cognitive impairment or dementia.
These drugs also increase the risk of stroke, so it was assumed that the impact on thinking and memory came from brain lesions due to loss of blood flow that occurs with strokes, including the "silent" strokes. However, these studies showed that the number of brain lesions were not significantly higher among women on HRT, but the volume of brain tissue in those parts of the brain that are important for thinking and memory were shrinking faster than normal in women on HRT.
In the first study, lead investigator Dr Laura Coker of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, and colleagues found that HRT was not linked to an increase in silent strokes or small vascular lesions in the brain.
In the second study, lead author Dr Susan Resnick, of the NIH's National Institute on Aging, and colleagues found that women who took HRT had slightly smaller volumes of brain tissue in two areas that are important for thinking and memory: the frontal lobe and the hippocampus. A shrinking hippocampus is also thought to be a risk factor for dementia.
The research comes from two studies reporting findings from a substudy of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) landmark Women's Health Initiative (WHI) hormone therapy clinical trials called the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study and that appear as companion papers in the 13 January issue of Neurology.
Previous research showed that HRT comprising conjugated equine estrogens (CEEs, used extensively in HRT), with or without progestin, made it more likely that older women on these treatments would have more difficulty with thinking and memory, and experience cognitive impairment or dementia.
These drugs also increase the risk of stroke, so it was assumed that the impact on thinking and memory came from brain lesions due to loss of blood flow that occurs with strokes, including the "silent" strokes. However, these studies showed that the number of brain lesions were not significantly higher among women on HRT, but the volume of brain tissue in those parts of the brain that are important for thinking and memory were shrinking faster than normal in women on HRT.
In the first study, lead investigator Dr Laura Coker of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, and colleagues found that HRT was not linked to an increase in silent strokes or small vascular lesions in the brain.
In the second study, lead author Dr Susan Resnick, of the NIH's National Institute on Aging, and colleagues found that women who took HRT had slightly smaller volumes of brain tissue in two areas that are important for thinking and memory: the frontal lobe and the hippocampus. A shrinking hippocampus is also thought to be a risk factor for dementia.
It's not reassuring is it?
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