Androgen Therapy May Slow Progress of Alzheimer's Disease

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Omschrijving
Experiments on mouse models of Alzheimer's disease (AD) suggest that treatment with male sex hormones might slow its progression. The findings, published in the December 20 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, provide new insight into the relationship between testosterone loss and AD, which affects 4.5 million Americans.

Senior author Christian Pike, PhD, of the University of Southern California (USC), with colleagues at USC and the University of California, Irvine, sought to better understand the role hormones play in aging and disease. Recent studies had already established a link between testosterone loss in men and AD due to natural aging.

The research team established a correlation between low testosterone and elevated beta-amyloid (Aß), a protein that accumulates abnormally in AD patients. This finding, they say, suggests that testosterone depletion in aging men may be a risk factor for AD by promoting accumulation of Aß in the brain. Testosterone, the primary male sex hormone, is one in a group of related steroid hormones referred to as androgens. Recent studies suggest that androgens may lower Aß levels.

"This study raises the possibility that androgen replacement therapy might lower the risk for Alzheimer's, but this is far from proven," says Sam Gandy, MD, PhD, chair of the Alzheimer's Association's Medical and Scientific Advisory Council and director of the Farber Institute for Neurosciences at Thomas Jefferson University. "Because testosterone is rapidly converted to estrogen after entry into neurons, the new data are logical, and they dovetail well with historical data."

 

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Categorie: alzheimer

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