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Estrogen And Parkinson’s Disease

Estrogen Improves Parkinson’s Disease Symptoms

Does Parkinsons disease affect women differently than men? (Karen Blindauer, MD)

by Society for Neuroscience

Brain-selective estrogen treatment improves the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease in male mice, according to new research published in JNeurosci. These findings may help explain the sex differences in Parkinson’s disease and could lead to estrogen-based treatments.

Parkinson’s disease is characterized by the death of neurons involved in movement, which may be partially caused by gene mutations for the protein -synuclein. The mutated, shorter form of the protein clusters in neurons, resulting in their death, while the longer form resists clumping.

Estrogen is thought to protect movement neurons from Parkinson’s disease, but how is unknown. Since the patients more susceptible to Parkinson’s diseasemen and post-menopausal womenhave low estrogen levels, estrogen treatment might be an effective way to delay and reduce symptoms.

Silke Nuber and colleagues at Harvard Medical School treated mouse models of Parkinson’s disease with brain-selective estrogen and compared the motor performance of males and females before and after treatment. The female mice showed less severe symptoms at a later age, but estrogen still improved their symptoms. In male mice, the estrogen treatment reduced -synuclein breakdown and buildup and helped with severe symptoms, suggesting that estrogen could be a viable treatment option for Parkinson’s patients with low estrogen levels.

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Symptoms Of Parkinsons In Women

Premenstrual symptoms of depression, bloating, weight gain and breast tenderness also appear to increase in intensity in women who note a variation in their symptom control with menstruation. Usually these symptoms improve after menstruation but will reoccur with each cycle. A small sample of women in the studies used birth control pills. They reported that they had less intense fluctuations in their symptom control but more research needs to be done before recommendations can be made. However, it is important to recognize that these fluctuations occur so that women can be prepared for the changes in control. The use of regular exercise and relaxation techniques can help decrease symptoms and improve coping abilities.

Estrogen Therapy For Men Maybe

Men are more likely to develop Parkinsons disease than women, and the onset of PD in men happens at a younger age. However, women with PD have a higher mortality rate, and once they have Parkinsons, progression is faster. Research suggests that women get the disease at later in life when compared to men, at least in part, due to the natural protection estrogen provides. There are studies that have demonstrated that hormone replacement therapy can provide dopaminergic neuroprotection in both young and menopausal female mice.

Could the female sex hormone, estrogen, be a therapeutic approach for delaying or reducing PD symptoms for men?

Recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience, a study titled, Female Sex and Brain-Selective Estrogen Benefit -Synuclein Tetramerization and the PD-like Motor Syndrome in 3K Transgenic Mice investigated this possible therapeutic neuroprotective effect.

Using mice called 3K that show motor and neural changes associated with PD, researchers injected male mice under the skin with the hormone therapy DHED. What makes DHED so special is that it was designed to only activate estrogen in the brain. This matters because estrogen therapy has been associated with an increase in cancer in other parts of the human body.

Results

Like the sex differences found in people with PD, 3K male mice developed PD-like symptoms faster than female mice. Furthermore, male mice treated with DHED had:

What Does This Mean?

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Testosterone Replacement & Parkinsons Disease

Low Testosterone is quite common in older patients and, interestingly, the symptoms of low T overlap with symptoms of Parkinsons disease, including loss of muscle mass, decreased sex drive, anxiety, depression and fatigue. In both healthy individuals with low t and patients with Parkinsons disease these symptoms do not respond to antidepressant therapy or other traditional treatments.

Early tests have suggested that testosterone replacement aids patients with Parkinsons in exercise and physical activity. It is believed that testosterone replacement improves the patients motivation, endurance and stamina to improve their physical fitness, in the same way that it helps aging men who do not have Parkinsons. just as it does in those without the disease.

Additionally testosterone replacement increases dopamine production and decreases inflammation in the male brain.

Parkinsons Disease In Women

Estrogen improves Parkinson

Until recently, little has been written regarding the effect that gender has on the development and management of Parkinsons disease.

Current research has focused mainly on the impact that sex hormones have on the development of Parkinsons disease. Less has been written on the impact that Parkinsons disease has on menstruation, pregnancy and menopause. This article will review the most recent information on both the affect that Parkinsons disease has on women and the impact that gender has on Parkinsons disease.

While Parkinsons disease is usually thought of as a disease of the elderly, approximately 3-5% of women diagnosed with this disorder are under the age of 50. A large number of these women are still experiencing regular menstrual cycles. Studies that have reviewed the effect of hormone fluctuations and menstruation on Parkinsons disease have noted an impact of the menstrual cycle on disease control. During menstruation women described increasing Parkinsonian symptoms, decreasing medication responsiveness and increased off times. They also complain of increased fatigue, cramps and heavier menstrual flow. This can lead to occasional humiliating self-care issues due to worsening dexterity.

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Dementia And Diet: An Update

Editor’s Note: While attending the American Academy of Neurology 66th Annual Meeting, held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from April 26 through May 3, 2014, Medscape interviewed Kara M. Smith, MD, a fellow in the Department of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, about her study looking at the potential protective role of estrogen in Parkinson disease .

Medscape: Can you give us some background on your study?

Dr. Smith: My study is about the neuroprotective effects of estrogen and sex hormones in PD. We know that PD is much more common in men than in women, and women who have a higher lifetime exposure to estrogen have a lower risk for PD. When women do get PD, it tends to be later in life after menopause, when they have lower levels of estrogen.

So there seemed to be a connection epidemiologically that was then looked at in animal models. I did a systematic review of these studies to evaluate the evidence for and against the neuroprotective effects of estrogen and related compounds.

Medscape: What did you find?

Medscape: Can you speak to the potential mechanism through which estrogen might be neuroprotective?

Medscape: Had prior evidence shown an association between estrogen and dopamine metabolism?

Dr. Smith: There are some examples of primates in which an oophorectomy was associated with a decrease in dopamine, which could be reversed by replacing estrogen. So dopamine did seem to protect dopamine neurons in the brain.

Pharmacological Therapy Of Motor Symptoms

In the absence of a disease-modifying therapy, PD treatment is currently based on the control of motor symptoms by levodopa supplementation. However, long-term therapy with levodopa is associated with the development of motor complications, such as levodopa-induced-dyskinesia, wearing off and on-off phenomena. It is generally assumed that dyskinesia is associated with sustained levodopa plasma levels . Commonly, women present greater levodopa bioavailability, which is further supported by lower levodopa clearance levels . Dopamine bioavailability in the central nervous system is dependent on the activity of two catabolic enzymes: catechol-O-methyltransferase and monoamine oxidase-B , whose encoding genes are located on the chromosome 22 and X chromosome, respectively . A study that explored the relationship between MAO-B or COMT functional SNPs and levodopa therapy reported that male PD patients carrying the MAO-B G allele had a 2.84-fold increased risk of developing motor complications when treated with high doses of levodopa .

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Hormones May Play A Role In Parkinson’s

Study Shows Length of Fertility for Women May Be a Factor in Risk for Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease is a movement disorder that results in slowness of movement, impaired balance, and tremor and trembling in the extremities and face. It affects about 1 million Americans, according to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.

Fertile life span is the number of years from first menstruation to menopause. “Thirty five or thirty-six years is about average,” says study researcher Rachel Saunders-Pullman, MD, MPH, assistant professor of neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and attending neurologist at Beth Israel Medical Center, New York City.

“It does appear that hormones and reproductive factors play a role in the development of Parkinson’s disease,” she says. Her study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 61st annual meeting in Seattle, April 25-May 2.

Hormonal factors and their possible role in Parkinson’s disease have been studied for at least 15 years, says Saunders-Pullman. Parkinson’s affects more men than women, she says, with the gender ratio about two to one.

“The question is, ‘Why are women at decreased risk? Is there a hormonal role?”’ she asks. “Could female hormones be protective?”

Pharmacological Therapy Of Non

Understanding Parkinsons Disease, Causes, Symptoms and Treatment | Dr. Kamal Nagar

Antipsychotic are an important drug class for the treatment of patients with PD or dementia with Lewy bodies in cases where hallucinations and psychosis can be disabling. However, these drugs have been associated with increased mortality and morbidity in this population, especially in older PD patients. Two independent studies on Canadian cohorts of PD patients under treatment with antipsychotic drugs showed that older age and male sex were significantly associated with an increased rate of antipsychotic prescriptions during follow-up . As reported in another study, male PD patients more often receive a prescription of antipsychotic drugs in the absence of a clear psychosis diagnosis, with respect to female patients. This, as suggested by the authors, may be related to the fact that male patients are more prone to become aggressive and difficult to assist than women, when the disease is complicated by psychosis .

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Longitudinal Assessment Of The Changes In The Levodopa Equivalent Dose

PD medications were prescribed after confirming decreased DAT availability in PP on the 18F-FP-CIT PET scans. The starting point of PD medications was at second clinic visit, which was within three months after the first visit. After diagnosis of PD, two movement disorder specialists adjusted the doses of PD medications for symptom control at 36-month intervals. At each visit, the doses of PD medication were checked, and the levodopa equivalent dose was calculated based on previously described methodology.

Mechanism Of Estrogen Therapy

In conclusion, a meta-analysis was conducted with regard to the long-standing debate about whether ERT protects cognition and reduces the risk of neurodegenerative disease. First, different diseases were classified. In the case of AD, more research data were included, beneficial conclusions were thus obtained, which also verified the clinical observation data. Meta-analysis in the estrogen therapy and the risk of PD were first conducted, the results showed that estrogen therapy significantly reduced the risk of PD. These data can help with the development of new therapeutic ideas and preventative measures for future clinical application regarding the development AD and PD.

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Quantitative Analysis Of The 18f

Image processing was performed using Statistical Parametric Mapping 12 . For each patient, the reconstructed PET image was co-registered onto the corresponding MRI and normalized to the MNI152 template using normalization parameters defined from the corresponding MRI. Twelve volumes of interests of bilateral striatal sub-regions and one occipital VOI were drawn on the MNI152 template. The striatum was divided into right and left anterior/posterior caudate , anterior/ventral/posterior putamen , and ventral striatum as previously described . In the supplementary analysis performed by including our previous PD cohort group, we used the methodology for analyzing 18F-FP-CIT PET images that had been employed in a previous study.

Treating Treat Parkinsons Disease With Hormone Replacement Therapy

The role of melatonin in Parkinsons disease

The brain regulates every aspect of the body including voluntary functions like thinking and involuntary functions such as heartbeat, breathing and even hormone production. The pituitary gland and the hypothalamus are located within the brain and are responsible for controlling hormone production.

Parkinsons disease, however, causes the failure and death of the critical nerve cells in the brain called neurons. Parkinsons mainly affects neurons in an area of the brain that produces the dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter that sends messages between nerve cells that controls movement and coordination.

Recent ground-breaking research has begun to suggest that hormone replacement therapy may be able to help Improve neuromuscular functioning in patients with Parkinsons disease.

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Characteristics Of Included Studies

We found 111 potentially relevant articles. Among these articles, a total of 21 eligible studies were pooled together for analyses . The NewcastleOttawa Scale scores of eligible articles were between 7 and 8, with an average of 7.57. Baseline characteristics of included studies are shown in Tables 13.

Table 1. Characteristics of studies included.

Table 2. Summary of resultsestrogen replacement therapy and Alzheimer’s disease risk.

Table 3. Summaryof resultsestrogen replacement therapy and Parkinson’s disease risk.

Stratification of the study: 13 were case-control studies, five were prospective cohort studies, and three were cross-sectional studies. Stratification of the location: 15 studies were conducted in America, three in Europe , and two other countries . In the AD group, there were 13 studies in America, two in Europe , and one in other countries. Stratification of neurological disorders: five cases evaluated the impact of ERT on PD and 16 cases on AD. All studies were collected on the use of hormone therapy either by self-report at the start of the study, by electronic prescription database, or by medical records. Furthermore, all studies were included in this review except one reported using standard criteria to diagnose AD and dementia .

Low Human Growth Hormone And Parkinsons Disease

Adequate levels of circulating HGH in the body are indispensable for healthy aging. HGH keeps bone, muscle, and organ tissue healthy by stimulating cellular regeneration and healthy cell recycling. Hormonal therapy with HGH has shown effectiveness in reducing the symptoms and slowing the progression of Parkinsons disease in clinical studies:

The study, an early phase clinical trial designed to test the safety of administering the protein directly to the brain, found the therapy significantly improved motor skills and reduced tremors in five patients with Parkinsons disease.

In addition, mounting evidence suggests that deficiencies of a hormone closely linked to HGH insulin-like growth factor 1 may also drive the development of Parkinsons disease and negatively affect a patients prognosis. This discovery is important because HGH triggers the release of IGF-1. So, as clinical trials have demonstrated, HRT with HGH can boost IGF-1 levels and, in turn, mitigate the symptoms of Parkinsons disease.

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Discussion Of Subgroup And Regression Analysis

Different researchers used appropriate study designs to study the relationship between ERT and AD and PD. Meta-regression results showed that the study design was indeed the heterogeneous source of meta-analysis . Therefore, we classified the articles into case-control study and prospective cohort study according to different study designs and then re-conducted meta-analysis. When only prospective cohort studies were included, we observed an increased effective size for AD studies , adding more proof that ERT is indeed beneficial for treating AD . Therefore, we believe that this study design is more reasonable and effective in the epidemiological study of ERT and neurodegenerative diseases. We call on researchers to be more inclined to choose this research design in future epidemiological studies.

Some literature suggests that the role of ERT may depend on the age of menopause and the therapeutic intervention used. The time window of estrogen therapy is associated with the risk of onset and/or developing neurodegenerative disease, and early treatment performed 10 years after menopause can decrease the risk . Regression analysis for age showed no statistical significance. According to the subgroup analysis among age 70 , age 7179 , and age 80 , there was no evidence indicating that age was associated with the risk of disease development.

Table 5. Summary of resultsroute of administration and Alzheimer’s disease risk.

Hrt Can Improve Mobility Lower Risk Of Dementia

YOPD Women’s Council: Periods, Menopause, HRT, Hormones, & Parkinsons

Neurology Solutions Movement Disorders Center offers bioidentical hormone replacement therapy to patients seen frequently by the practice to help address mobility and mood and improve quality of life. Hormone Therapy for Parkinsonsdisease and other neurodegenerative diseases can reduce certain symptoms associated with PD and reduces dementia risk in the general elderly population. Our health and wellness center is here to help.

A study of over 230,000 postmenopausal women in four nations found that HRT halved the risk of Alzheimers for those who used hormone therapy for more than a decade. If started at the onset of menopause, hormone therapy also was found to prevent memory loss and confusion, according to a study following participants for up to 20 years. Long-term use also was associated with better overall mental skills including episodic memory the recall of times, places and events.

Hormone therapy for Parkinsons in men targets testosterone deficiency. A sudden decrease in testosterone may be tied to the increased prevalence of PD in men, who are diagnosed with the disorder by almost a 2 to 1 margin to women. Researchers have studied the impact of testosterone deficiency on male mice and found that castrated mice begin to develop motor symptoms similar to PD, which were reversed with 5-alpha-dihydrotestosterone supplements.

Physical benefits of HRT for Neurodegenerative Diseases

HRT as Parkinsons disease treatments has also has been found to:

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Studies Supporting Hormone Replacement To Treat Parkinsons Disease

In August of 2019 the website Science Daily reported the results of a cutting-edge study from the Society for Neuroscience. There it was reported that brain-selective estrogen treatment had improved the symptoms of Parkinsons disease in male mice, according to research published in JNeurosci.

It was also postulated in that report that womens protective estrogen levels may be the reason that two times more men than women are diagnosed with Parkinsons disease . The authors expressed optimism that these findings could eventually lead to estrogen-based treatments for Parkinsons disease .

In another study, the Neurology Solutions Movement Disorders Center conducted trials on approximately 80 Parkinsons disease patients with bioidentical hormone replacement therapy . The hope was that bringing the patients hormone levels closer to the hormone profile of their youth would improve mobility, motor activity, cognition, mood and overall quality of life.

Encouragingly, about 50 percent of Parkinsons patients in HRT study reported benefits including improved energy level, better cognitive performance, increased muscle tone, higher sex drive, and less depression. And, 10 to 15 percent of those patients reported experiencing remarkable results, that included better physical mobility.

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