{"id":79606,"date":"2025-10-14T09:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T09:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/79606\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T09:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T09:30:07","slug":"women-who-take-hrt-after-menopause-less-likely-to-develop-dementia-study-indicates-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/79606\/","title":{"rendered":"Women who take HRT after menopause less likely to develop dementia, study indicates \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Women who take hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after menopause<\/a> are less likely to develop dementia<\/a>, a landmark study published on Tuesday indicates. <\/p>\n

Led by the University of Galway<\/a> (UG) and drawing on data from a 77-year-old longitudinal study in the United States, the research also shows starting menopause as a younger woman is indicative of a higher risk of dementia. <\/p>\n

The study, published in the Journal for Alzheimer\u2019s disease<\/a>, draws on data from 1,329 cognitively healthy women participating in what is described as \u201cthe world\u2019s longest-running longitudinal cohort study\u201d. It analysed the association between reproductive factors and brain ageing. <\/p>\n

In the general population, women have a higher risk of dementia than men, with women accounting for almost two-thirds of people living with Alzheimer\u2019s disease<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The study says: \u201cGreater exposure to oestrogen over the reproductive lifespan was associated with enhanced cognitive performance and larger brain volumes\u201d, while \u201chaving more children, higher blood oestrogen levels and being older at the time of menopause were also associated with better cognitive test performance\u201d. <\/p>\n

Prof Emer McGrath, lead author and associate professor in medicine at UG, said the study\u2019s purpose was to explore the association between reproductive and hormonal factors across a woman\u2019s lifespan, and risk of brain ageing. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked at neurocognitive and neuroimaging markers from MRI brain scans, as well as cognitive test performance, including tests of memory, reasoning skills and visuospatial skills. We also looked at the future risk of dementia in relation to these reproductive factors.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Menopause and HRT: \u2018I never had a hot flush. I was just losing myself. By 47 or 48 the weight had really come on\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found that entering menopause at an earlier age appears to be associated with an increased risk of dementia, while post-menopause hormone replacement therapy appears to be associated with a lower risk of dementia. <\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough our results suggest positive cognitive benefits of greater lifetime oestrogen exposure, they do require further validation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The adults in this study were later participants in the Framingham Heart Study<\/a>, which began in 1948 in the University of Boston, under the direction of the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Its original and ongoing purpose was to identify the common factors or characteristics that contribute to cardiovascular disease in women, though its data has been used for other research such as this.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Prof Donal O\u2019Shea: \u2018I\u2019ll be advising my girls to go on HRT\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In 1971, the study recruited the children of the original Framingham cohort, along with their spouses, to form the Framingham offspring cohort. This group was included in this study.<\/p>\n

Prof McGrath said that despite its public health importance, our understanding of sex-related differences in Alzheimer\u2019s disease and related dementias \u201csignificantly lags behind that in the cardiovascular field\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile longer life expectancy in women may explain some of the higher risk in women, factors including reproductive health and hormonal levels in women may play an important role,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women who take hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after menopause are less likely to develop dementia, a landmark study…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51967,2926,42,12875,12359,43,40,38,41,39,5761],"class_list":["post-79606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alzheimer-s-disease","tag-dementia","tag-headlines","tag-health-wellness","tag-menopause","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-university-of-galway"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}