Nearly two-thirds of Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease are women, and since the disease affects older adults, most women with Alzheimer’s are postmenopausal. While many people have simply chalked that up to women being more likely to live longer than men, there are still many questions about the higher prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in women. Now, new research suggests that female brains may be especially sensitive to the loss of estrogen that happens in menopause.
While it’s hard to say that a drop in estrogen causes Alzheimer’s disease, the study suggests that estrogen loss affects the extracellular matrix (ECM) in the hippocampus, the brain region that’s linked to memory consolidation and connecting emotions to memories. With that, it makes sense that the two may be related on some level.
“Menopause is associated with a drastic decline in estrogen levels, and the resulting loss of estrogen may diminish the brain’s natural protection against memory impairment and neurodegeneration,” says Hong Zhao, MD, PhD, study co-author and research professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
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