Menopause, hormonal therapy linked to increased risk of dementia © ANSA/Ansa
(ANSA) – ROME, JUNE 29 – Hormone therapy used to deal with the discomforts of menopause has been linked to a greater risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s, especially if taken for several years: the risk has increased by up to 74%. This was revealed by a study conducted by Nelsan Pourhadi of the University of Copenhagen and published in the British Medical Journal.
Hormone therapy, used to relieve common menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, includes tablets containing estrogen alone or a combination of estrogen and progestin, as well as skin patches, gels, and creams. Long-term use of menopausal hormone therapy has been shown in the past to be associated with the development of dementia, confirming the findings of the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study, the largest clinical study on this topic.
However, data on the effect of short-term use and different treatment regimens on the risk of dementia were lacking. To fill these gaps, the Danish researchers evaluated the association between the use of combined estrogen and progestogen therapy and the development of dementia based on the type of hormone treatment, duration of use and age of intake.
Drawing on data from the Danish national registry, they identified 5,589 dementia cases and 55,890 dementia-free controls, from a population of all Danish women aged 50 to 60 in 2000. Before diagnosis, 1,782 (32%) cases and 16,154 (29%) controls had received estrogen-progestin therapy starting at a mean age of 53 years. The mean duration of use was 3.8 years for women who developed dementia and 3.6 years for others.
The results show that, compared with women who had never used the treatment, those who took estrogen-progestogen therapy had a 24 per cent higher risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The risk increases with extended use, from 21% more for a year or less to 74% for more than 12 years of use. The increase in the rate of dementia was similar between the continuous (estrogen and progestogen taken daily) and cyclic (estrogen and progestogen taken daily for 10 to 14 days per month) treatment regimens.
The use of progestogen-only and vaginal estrogen-only therapy has not been associated with the development of dementia. (HANDLE).
breaking latest news © Copyright ANSA
]]>
]]>
Get the embed code
]]>
]]>
]]>