Estrogen Therapy Depends on Timing

Ivanhoe Newswire

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(Ivanhoe Newswire) A new animal study on estrogen therapy finds it may help the brain, depending on the timing. Researchers found estrogen therapy may limit stroke damage if started shortly after reproductive cycles are over.

Since the Womens Health Initiative study found long-term therapy with estrogen may increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, many women have been confused over whether to take hormone therapy at menopause. Since then, researchers speculated the timing of estrogen treatment might be important for its effects.

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Researchers from Texas A & M Health Science Center compared female mature rats, which were physiologically similar to women going through menopause, to older rats that no longer had reproductive cycles resembling postmenopausal women. They removed the ovaries of all rats, gave them estrogen replacement therapy (estradiol) for three weeks then induced a stroke. The researchers studied the rats brains for tissue damage a week later.

Results show all the rats had sensory and motor damage. But the stroke caused much more tissue damage in the acyclic older females and estrogen treatment actually increased the volume of the brain that was damaged. In the mature adult rats, estrogen therapy seemed to reduce the area of brain damage.

This study supports the idea that there is a narrow window of time as a woman approaches menopause and immediately afterward where estrogen therapy may provide neuroprotective benefits, study author, Farida Sohrabji, Ph.D., Texas A & M Health Science Center, was quoted as saying.

SOURCE: The Endocrine Societys 90th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, June 2-15, 2008

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