Accelerated Biological Aging in Women with Alzheimer’s Inhibited by Hormone Therapy

Alzheimer's Reading Room Healthy menopausal women carrying a well-known genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease showed measurable signs of accelerated biological aging, a new study has found. However, in carriers who started hormone therapy at menopause and remained on that therapy, this acceleration was absent, the researchers said.  Hormone therapy for non-carriers of the risk factor, a gene variant called ApoE4, had no protective effect on their biological aging. Subscribe to the Alzheimer's Reading Room Email: Accelerated biological aging evident in women with Alzheimer’s risk factor, but inhibited by hormone therapy, researchers say “This shows that ApoE4 is contributing to aging at the cellular level well before any outward symptoms of decline become apparent,” said Natalie Rasgon, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine and director of the Stanford Center for Neuroscience in Women’s Health. “Yet, estrogen appears to have a protective effect for middle-aged women who are carrying this genetic risk factor.”All people carry two copies of a gene called ApoE. (One copy is inherited from each parent). Like genes for eye or hair color, ApoE comes in more than one version. Some 15 to 20 percent of Americans carry at least one copy of ApoE4, a version that puts them at substantially increased risk for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease in comparison with people who are not ApoE4 car...
Source: Alzheimer's Reading Room, The - Category: Dementia Authors: Source Type: blogs