Wellness Corner

In the past, it was discovered that taking progesterone might allow some women to limit the effect of Alzheimer's in their older years. Any potential treatment for Alzheimer's is important because of the devastating effects of the disease. So a number of women were frustrated to find out recently that progesterone may not be effective for them if they are taking it in combination with estrogen as part of their hormone replacement therapy.

A study reported on by the United Press International indicates that progesterone alone may have some mitigating effect on the development of Alzheimer's. However, when it is combined with estrogen, it isn't as effective. Therefore, people who are using hormone replacement therapy aren't necessarily protecting themselves against Alzheimer's.

Does this mean that you have to stop your HRT if you want to protect yourself against Alzheimer's? Not at all. First of all, there's no proven guarantee that progesterone minimizes the effects of Alzheimer's. So if your hormone replacement therapy is minimizing your menopause symptoms, you'll probably want to continue what's working instead of trying to go after something that's not proven.

However, if you are interested in learning more about using HRT as an Alzheimer's prevention tool, you should know that the study suggests that dosage could be the problem seen so far. It may be possible that adjusting the dosage of progesterone and estrogen in the hormone replacement therapy could provide benefits. Additional studies will have to be done to be sure.

Question of the Day: Would you take progesterone to try to prevent Alzheimer's?

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