Word: estrogenic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...larger of the two studies - a broad review of data from about 3,000 interviews with women in Olmsted County, Minn. - is among the first to show that ovarian preservation and estrogen therapy protect brain function. Of the study participants, who were all matched for age, 813 women had one ovary removed and 676 women had both ovaries removed, while the 1,472 women in the control group had both ovaries intact. Half of the women had oophorectomies because of a benign condition, such as infection or cysts, and the other half had their ovaries removed prophylactically to prevent ovarian...
...younger the age of the woman at the time of oophorectomy, the higher her risk of cognitive impairment or dementia because there is a longer period in which she is deprived of estrogen and neuroprotection," says Rocca. "Our study suggests that if there is good reason to remove the ovaries before age 50, there is good reason to consider [estrogen] treatment until 50, the age when a woman naturally reaches menopause...
While its general findings are valid, Rocca's study had limitations. For instance, the participants' dementia was measured not in person, but through a cognitive test over the phone or through a proxy. Also, the women had had their surgeries between 1950 and 1987 - oophorectomy procedures and estrogen therapy may have been different then than...
...link between protective mental health benefits and estrogen therapy appears to conflict with the findings of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), which found that women who took estrogen alone or estrogen plus progestin from age 65 increased their risk of mild impairment or dementia - along with other cardiovascular problems. But the authors of the Neurology studies stress that the age-dependent window is key when considering therapy and mental health. "Below 50, estrogen is protective. After 65 it is harmful. But nobody really knows between 50 and 65," says Rocca. "In the middle it's still unclear...
...director of the Women's Health Clinic at the Mayo Clinic, agrees that timing is crucial. The women in the WHI study were years out from menopause and probably already had significant hardening and narrowing of the arteries, says Shuster. It comes as no surprise, then, that taking an estrogen pill, which increases blood clots, would increase heart and brain events. "The problem is that the results of the WHI were extrapolated to say that older women shouldn't take estrogen. But the bigger issue probably depends on when a woman starts it, if it is going to be protective...