Hormone Therapy May Protect Against Alzheimer's

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But women who started estrogen-only therapy after the age of 65 had about a 50 percent increased risk of developing dementia. The risk was nearly double among women using combined (estrogen plus progestin) therapy.

The study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Wyeth, a pharmaceutical company that makes Prempro, a hormone therapy.

Gandy had a possible biological explanation for differences observed in younger and older postmenopausal women.

"I think about it biologically. If you give HRT early, you prevent menopause from ever happening. The brain never sees menopause," Gandy said. "But if you allow menopause to happen, the brain goes from 30 years of a hormone-rich environment to a hormone-deficient environment, then a reintroduction of hormones after menopause. I think the brain reacts to those two scenarios very differently.

"What we're learning is, if there's anything here in terms of HRT and Alzheimer's, it has to be early," he continued. "This is the first signal from a randomized, placebo-controlled, well-designed study that this early initiation may be the way to go. [But] it's a very complicated situation that we don't have our arms around completely."

But when it comes to hormone replacement therapy, official guidelines recommend that women take HRT for relief of menopausal symptoms only and then at the lowest dose possible for the shortest period of time possible. Extended use of hormone therapy has been linked to a variety of significant health problems, including breast cancer, heart attack and stroke.

More information

The Alzheimer's Association can tell you more about Alzheimer's disease.