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Estrogen Might Help Alzheimers

By Reuters
Contributed by Rachelle Austin
The female hormone estrogen may help Alzheimer's disease by stopping the formation of the plaques that characterize it, researchers said Monday.

Sam Gandy of the Alzheimer Research Program at New York University and colleagues across the country, in France and in Sweden found that estrogen blocked a peptide that forms the plaques, at least in test-tube cultures of brain cells.

``These results suggest a mechanism by which estrogen replacement therapy can delay or prevent Alzheimer's disease,'' they wrote in a report in the journal Nature Medicine.

The peptide involved is known as ``ab''.

Recent studies have indicated that estrogen replacement therapy in women may help delay or prevent Alzheimer's disease -- a very common degeneration of the brain that affects four million Americans.

Gandy's group said it was possible there were other mechanisms by which estrogen worked, as well.

The Alzheimer's Association, which helped pay for the study, welcomed the findings.

``This is good science by respected scientists that moves us in a positive direction,'' said Zaven Khachaturian, director of the association's Ronald & Nancy Reagan Research Institute.

But he said other groups needed to confirm the findings.

``These are laboratory findings,'' Khachaturian said. ``We still don't know if they are applicable to living people.''

Once the mechanism is understood, researchers can start work on safe Alzheimer's drugs using the hormone. Estrogen can increase the risk of cancer in women and can have feminizing effects on men, such as the growth of breasts.

``Recent studies have shown that estrogen may have a protective effect on nerve cells in the brain, and may somehow prevent nerve cell death,'' the Alzheimer's Association said in a statement.

``What remains unknown is the mechanisms by which estrogen works in the brain, and exactly how it benefits nerve cells. Clinical trials are underway to test estrogen for the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease.''

There is no cure for Alzheimer's and no known way to prevent it, but drugs are available that reduce some of its effects for a while.



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