Hormone Replacement Therapy Tied to Mental Benefits

Older women who use certain forms of hormone replacement therapy seem to perform better on tests of memory and mental speed than other women do, a new study finds.

In a four-year study of 3,130 French women aged 65 and older, researchers found that those currently on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) performed better on certain cognitive tests. Those who had used HRT in the past but were no longer on it showed no such advantage.

The findings, published in Neurology, conflict with a widely publicized 2003 U.S. study that linked HRT to an increased dementia risk among older women. However, women in that study were given a particular oral formulation of HRT called Prempro, which combines estrogen and synthetic form of progesterone called medroxyprogesterone.

In contrast, women in the current study were mostly using HRT skin patches with a different combination of estrogen and a natural progesterone, explains lead researcher Dr. Joanne Ryan of the French national research institute INSERM. That, she explains, may help explain the benefits.

Still, no one is recommending that women use any form of HRT for the sake of warding off dementia.

For their study, Ryan and her colleagues followed 3,130 women aged 65 and older, 15% of whom were currently on HRT at the start of the study.

Overall, the study found, HRT users tended to score better on certain measures of memory and mental speed at the outset; they also showed a lesser decline in so-called psychomotor speed—the amount of time it takes a person to process and react to a signal.

There was no evidence that hormone therapy reduced women's risk of developing dementia over the four-year study. However, among women with a gene variant linked to increased Alzheimer's risk. HRT users had no increased risk of dementia during the study period.

The finding, according to Ryan, raises the possibility that HRT might benefit women who are genetically predisposed to developing dementia. She says that future studies should continue to examine that question.

— Source: Reuters Health