The women who enter premature menopause maybe it’s more likely develop dementiaaccording to US researchers who found that starting hormone replacement therapy (HRT) at the time of diagnosis appears to eliminate the risk.

The findings are preliminary and need to be confirmed by further and larger studies, but they show that starting treatment soon after the first symptoms appear may be better for his health, as well as reduce heart disease and other medical problems associated with menopause.

“When it comes to hormone therapy, timing is everything,” Dr. Joanne Manson, MD, is a professor and lead author of the study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

More than 10% of women experience early menopause, defined as the permanent cessation of menstruation. up to 40 years. This situation associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s diseaseHowever, it is not fully understood whether hormonal changes lead to dementia.

Hormone replacement therapy can relieve severe menopausal symptoms—from hot flashes to extreme mood swings—but its impact on brain health is less clear.

Investigators describe in Jama Neurology how they used brain images from 193 women and 99 men to map the presence of two proteins, β-amyloid and tau, key features of Alzheimer’s disease.

Women are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than men, and as expected, imaging revealed higher levels of tau protein in womencompared to men of the same age. But brain imaging showed that the association between abnormal amyloid and tau was much stronger in women with early menopause.

When scientists dug deeper to see if hormone therapy was associated with an accumulation of abnormal proteins, they found evidence that it was. but only when women started treatment five or more years after menopause.

“Hormone therapy can have negative effects on cognition, but only if it is started several years after menopause,” says the doctor. Gillian Coughlan, one of the authors of the study.

According to the researchers, the findings are consistent with clinical guidelines that say that HRT is safe when used early in menopause, while it may increase the risk of dementia when used late.

Source: Guardian