MRIs Show Slightly More Brain Decay in Women on Estrogen
The current study clearly does little to resolve the ongoing scientific and medical controversy over estrogen replacement therapy. Why all the fuss? "It is a very complicated issue," Sherwin says. "Estrogen has effects on bone mass, on the heart, on the brain, and long-term use is associated with breast cancer. Like any other drug, there is a risk/benefit issue for women. Some people focus on the positives, some on the negatives -- it's a mixed bag of things."
An ongoing study should provide answers to many of these questions. Funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study hopes to enroll a very large number of women 65 and older. For six years, these women will take either estrogen or a pill that looks like estrogen but does nothing. But the first results from the study won't be available until 2005.
Meanwhile, Manolio has a message for women who may be frightened by the finding of estrogen-related brain decay. "Basically, this is a very secondary issue in terms of decisions to take or not to take estrogen," she says. "Women need to take their physicians' advice -- this is nothing on which to change their behavior."