Eighteen years ago this month the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that it would sponsor a landmark study to examine women and cardiovascular disease. Known as the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), the study enrolled more than 161,000 women. By 2004 however, the government had ended two arms of the study involving estrogen after researchers found it posed a small but detrimental risk for stroke to postmenopausal women taking the hormone. The findings caught many members of the scientific community by surprise as estrogen had previously been shown to protect the brain from stroke in animal models.
Stroke, also known as a brain attack, is America's third leading cause of death. It typically occurs when blood flow to the brain is blocked, usually due to a clogged artery. When a stroke occurs, brain damage can result, especially in the area known as the hippocampus, thought to be the site for memory, memory loss, and learning. Despite the possible link between estrogen and stroke many women continue to take the hormone to manage their menopausal symptoms.
Does Estrogen Replacement Need to Occur Before Menopause to Protect the Brain?
Researchers at the Medical College of Georgia (MCG), along with collaborators at the North China Coal Medical University in Tangshan, China, and the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio, have taken the understanding between the hormone and the risk, and advanced scientific understanding. Their new study, using animals, finds that (1) estrogen clearly and strongly protects the hippocampus after stroke, thereby reducing some aspects of stroke-related brain damage; (2) that the hippocampus region of the brain becomes hypersensitive after a stroke if it has gone without sufficient levels of estrogen for long periods of time (and this study is the first to observe this transformation); (3) that long periods of low estrogen makes the hippocampus insensitive to estrogen protective effects, though the tissues of the uterus retain their sensitivity to estrogen; and (4) estrogen significantly inhibits activation of a key membrane enzyme - NADPH oxidase, which produces reactive free radical molecules that cause brain damage - following stroke.
The study provides support for the theory that there may be a "critical period" for beneficial protective effect of estrogen on the brain - e.g. that of estrogen replacement may need to be initiated prior to or at the time of menopause if estrogen is to protect the brain. Additional studies will need to confirm the findings.
The study was conducted by Darrell W. Brann, Quan-Guang Zhang, Limor Raz and Dong Han of the Institute of Molecular Medicine and Genetics, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta; Ratna Vadlamudi of the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio, and Ruimin Wang and Fang Yang, of the Research Center for Molecular Biology, North China Coal Medical University, Tangshan. Dr. Brann presented an overview of the team's findings at the American Physiological Society (APS) conference Sex and Gender this summer. The study's findings have been accepted and been published in the November 4, 2009 online edition of the Journal of Neuroscience (http://www.jneurosci.org/). The article is entitled "Estrogen Attenuates Ischemic Oxidative damage via an ERα-Mediated Inhibition of NADPH Oxidase Activation."
Methodology and Findings
E2, or 17β-estradiol, is a specific form of estrogen. It is unclear how it is used to protect the brain in general or the hippocampus in particular. Rats whose ovaries had been removed were used for the study and received either placebo or 17β-estradiol after the ovaries were removed in an attempt to mimic the progression of estrogen loss during menopause.
The animals were randomly assigned to one of four groups. Group 1 experienced only sham surgery and no stroke or estrogen (sham). Group 2 was induced with stroke and immediately received a faux drug (placebo). Group 3 animals were treated with 17β-estradiol for one week after being ovariectomized and then stroke was induced. Group 4 rats received either estrogen or placebo ten weeks after being ovariectomized and one week later stroke was induced.
Samples were taken from the rats and examined. Statistical analyses were also performed. Afterwards the researchers found: