In elderly men, the higher their blood concentrations of the hormone estradiol, the more they are at risk of dementia. The hormone testosterone does not influence brain performance. This has emerged from a study among 2300 men between 70 and 90 years of age conducted by Mirjam Geerlings of UMC Utrecht at the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Maryland (USA). The results were published on July 24 in the journal Annals of Neurology. In the study, Geerlings and her colleagues used data on 2300 Japanese-American men from Hawaii (the Honolulu Asia Aging Study). At the start of the study, Geerlings and colleagues studied the blood values and brain performance of this group. Between 1991 and 1999, 233 of these men developed dementia. Geerlings discovered that the higher the blood concentration of the estradiol hormone, the greater the risk the men would develop Alzheimer’s disease. This is the most common cause of dementia. In contrast to earlier studies, Geerlings did not find that testosterone protects against dementia.
Because the onset of the disease may have already occurred 10 to 15 years before the diagnosis was made, the researchers do not believe estradiol causes dementia. More probable is that it is an early marker for dementia. Perhaps the brain damage occurs because the enzyme produced by estradiol – aromatase – is too active. This enzyme is often overactive in damaged areas of the brain.
A document containing the article as published in the Annals of Neurology, can be found
here.
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