CNN —
Girls of their 50s who took estrogen and progestin hormone alternative remedy for menopausal signs had an elevated threat of dementia inside 20 years, a brand new observational research discovered. Signs of menopause can embody sizzling flashes, chills, night time sweats, sleep issues, temper modifications and vaginal dryness and ache throughout intercourse.
“The foremost novel discovering of this research is that we noticed a persistent, elevated fee of dementia for girls handled for the brief time period across the common age of pure menopause, which is about 51 years,” mentioned lead research writer Dr. Nelsan Pourhadi, a researcher on the Danish Dementia Analysis Centre at Copenhagen College Hospital Rigshospitalet in Denmark.
Nevertheless, consultants who deal with and research menopause say the research is unable to attract a direct connection to later-life dementia and that the general advantages of hormone alternative remedy, or HRT, far outweigh the dangers for a lot of sufferers.
“One discovering within the research was a hyperlink between dementia and the usage of HRT for a really brief time span, underneath a yr. That’s biologically implausible,” mentioned Pauline Maki, a professor of psychiatry, psychology, and obstetrics and gynecology and director of girls’s psychological well being analysis on the College of Illinois at Chicago. She was not concerned within the research.
David Curtis, an honorary professor at UCL Genetics Institute at College Faculty London, agrees that the hyperlink is “biologically implausible.” He was additionally not concerned within the analysis.
“An much more convincing (rationalization) is that some girls had been truly prescribed HRT as a result of that they had reminiscence issues,” he mentioned in a press release.
Girls who’ve sizzling flashes, temper or sleep points — all of which have an effect on cognition — are undoubtedly extra more likely to hunt down and use HRT, mentioned Dr. Kejal Kantarci, a professor of radiology within the division of neuroradiology on the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who was not concerned within the research.
“Which means girls who select to make use of hormone therapies may very well be those who’re already in danger for dementia,” mentioned Kantarci, who cowrote an editorial that was printed together with the brand new research.
“My coauthor and I are very involved that the message from this research can be that hormone therapies trigger dementia, and that’s not what’s occurring right here.”
Simply an affiliation
The brand new research, printed Wednesday in The BMJ journal, examined medical information for almost 56,000 Danish girls between 2000 and 2018. Over 5,500 of these girls had been later recognized with dementia or Alzheimer’s illness. Researchers in contrast folks with dementia who had used hormone remedy, even briefly, with these from the bigger group who had not.
Nevertheless, the research solely checked out individuals who used a sure sort of HRT — a mixture of estrogen and progestin that was broadly prescribed at the moment, mentioned Andrea Lenzi, a professor of endocrinology on the College of Rome La Sapienza, who was not concerned within the research.
“Over time, nonetheless, the therapies have modified lots, each by way of sort of medication and dosages, and subsequently the negative effects of at present’s remedy could also be fairly completely different from these of HRT from again then,” she mentioned in a press release.
Individuals with a uterus should use each estrogen and progesterone to keep away from thickening of the liner of the womb that may result in endometriosis. As soon as the uterus has been eliminated, solely estrogen therapy can be utilized. Right this moment, there are a variety of choices apart from oral HRT, together with patches and lotions.
After controlling for quite a lot of different components that may have an effect on the event of dementia, corresponding to age, intercourse, diabetes, thyroid illness, hypertension, and socioeconomic components, the research discovered girls who used the twin hormone alternative had a 24% elevated fee of dementia in contrast with girls who had by no means been on HRT.
“The median (common) age between the primary hormonal therapy and the precise dementia prognosis was round 18 years (after beginning to take HRT),” Pourhadi instructed CNN.
The prospect of being recognized with dementia went up with years spent on HRT, the research discovered. When girls used 12 or extra years of hormone remedy, the affiliation with a prognosis of dementia rose to 74%, Pourhadi mentioned.
“Nevertheless it needs to be famous that these percentages have some uncertainties and are usually not meant to translate on to a threat,” he instructed CNN. “That is an observational research and can’t decide causality, so additional research are wanted to research whether or not the affiliation we discovered is defined by a causal hyperlink between menopausal hormone remedy and dementia.”
Might it’s sizzling flashes as an alternative?
There’s a chance the connection is actual, mentioned Maki, who can also be senior director of analysis for the College of Illinois’s Heart for Analysis on Girls and Gender.
A 2019 observational research of Finnish girls, in addition to two different research finished within the UK and Taiwan, have additionally proven a really small elevated threat for Alzheimer’s illness, particularly when utilizing mixture hormones long-term, she mentioned.
Nevertheless, current analysis factors to a different believable rationalization for the findings — it’s the recent flashes themselves which may be driving the upper threat for dementia, mentioned Maki, who coauthored quite a lot of the papers.
“Our research discovered that sizzling flashes are linked to coronary heart illness, white matter hyperintensities (lesions) within the mind, alterations in mind construction and alterations in mind operate,” Maki mentioned.
Sizzling flashes are related to “decreased blood vessel operate and brain-specific blood stream,” mentioned Susan Davis, a professor of power illness and getting older and director of the Girls’s Well being Analysis Program at Monash College in Melbourne, Australia, who was not concerned with the brand new research.
“The true elephant within the room for this evaluation is: is the noticed threat of dementia in MHT customers on account of the usage of oral artificial MHT or because of the explanation why girls ever took MHT? This has been ignored,” she mentioned in a press release.
Randomized medical trials finished lately on girls of their 50s taking HRT as much as age 55 — the really useful cutoff in accordance with the North American Menopause Society — have proven a “zero, zilch” connection between cognitive decline and hormone remedy, Maki mentioned.
HRT is available in lotions and patches in addition to oral drugs, consultants say. MStudioImages/E+/Getty Pictures
“We now have three medical trials — which is the gold commonplace of analysis — that every one say when you’re taking hormone therapies at a youthful age throughout the menopausal transition, the cognitive decline doesn’t happen,” she mentioned. “And in reality, within the one trial that did the neuro imaging, they really discovered a discount in Alzheimer’s illness biomarkers within the mind.”
Whereas the brand new findings might “trigger alarm” for young women taking HRT, the research “highlights simply how a lot we nonetheless don’t know concerning the results of hormones on girls’s mind well being,” mentioned Amanda Heslegrave, a senior analysis fellow on the UK Dementia Analysis Institute in London, who was not concerned with the research.
“It needs to be a name to motion to make this a precedence space of analysis,” Heslegrave mentioned in a press release.