Alzheimer's: why women are more at risk
Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.
More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.Women are almost twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's in their lifetime as men. Hormonal changes that set in with the menopause could play a decisive role in this.
"For many years, the fact that women are at higher risk of Alzheimer's has been justified by the fact that they live longer than men," says Jill Goldstein of Bringham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. This may seem obvious at first - but it cannot be the only reason for the difference between the sexes. In fact, this gap does not only open up in old age: Even among the 65-year-olds, twice as many women as men suffer from Alzheimer's.
"Earlier research focused primarily on the elderly," explains Goldstein. Only then do the first clear symptoms of the disease appear in most patients. However, important factors in the development of the disease could have been overlooked - simply because the first changes in the brain take place much earlier.
Look at the middle age
The scientist and her colleagues have therefore now examined middle-aged test persons more closely. They rely on data from a long-term study, the New England Family Study. Goldstein's team focused on 200 women and men who were between 47 and 55 years old at the beginning of the study period.
Among other things, this allowed the researchers to examine the memory functions of healthy women before, during and after menopause and to compare them with those of men.
Women have better memories
They found that women initially performed better than men of the same age in all memory tests - but only until menopause. Then they caught up with the male participants, especially with regard to so-called executive memory skills. This includes higher cognitive skills such as organizing, structuring or evaluating information.
Estradiol protects the brain
A comparison with the measured hormone level showed that higher levels of the female sex hormone estradiol were associated with better memory performance. The study thus shows the crucial role sex hormones play in maintaining memory function, especially in women. With the menopause, changes in the female brain also set in, which could possibly contribute to the development of Alzheimer's. However, it has not yet been clarified which processes exactly take place.
Discover risk patients early
"The results could help identify people with a particularly high risk of Alzheimer's earlier," says Goldstein. This is crucial, because so far it has not been possible to develop drugs that work when the disease has already broken out. At an earlier stage, however, a therapy could possibly be more successful, many experts hope.
In Germany, more than 1.3 million people currently suffer from dementia, most of them from Alzheimer's. As life expectancy increases, experts estimate that there could be twice as many in 2050 as there are today.
Source: Dorene M Rentz and Goldstein J. M. et al .: Sex differences in episodic memory in early midlife: impact of reproductive aging. Menopause, November 7, 2016, doi: 10.1097 / GME.0000000000000771
