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Hormone Seems To Fight Parkinson's Women on estrogen fare better in two studies Researchers in New York City have announced that taking estrogen seems to ward off brain damage from Parkinson's disease. The reason is still a mystery. Earlier studies had already demonstrated that estrogen fights Alzheimer's disease, and even improves healthy patients' ability to remember words. But other research had suggested it does more harm than good. The new studies are the largest to date on estrogen and Parkinson's. Parkinson's disease destroys cells in the brain that control body motions. Early symptoms include uncontrollable trembling in the hands and feet. Muscles also become stiff, and walking becomes difficult. The disease's cause is unknown. People with Parkinson's also run a greater than usual risk of developing dementia, an inability to think and speak coherently. (Dementia is not a symptom of the disease, however.) In the latest experiment, researchers studied the medical records of 171 women at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City who were past menopause and in the early stages of Parkinson's. Of these, the 42 who had taken some form of estrogen fared much better than those who had not. Though estrogen didn't cure the disease, it did slow its progress: Women who had taken the hormone moved more quickly and smoothly, and were better able to walk and to dress themselves. In a separate study reported in the April 1998 Neurology, researchers from Columbia University, also in New York City, compared records of 87 women with Parkinson's disease. They found that those who took estrogen were five times less likely to suffer from dementia than those who didn't take the hormone. No one has yet measured estrogen's effects on men with Parkinson's. Nor has anyone studied how the hormone interacts with other drugs taken for the disease. What To Do Before recommending estrogen for Parkinson's, researchers are waiting for better studies. Instead of looking back at medical records, they want to randomly assign patients to take either estrogen or a placebo, then see which group does better. In the meantime, there are lots of other reasons to take estrogen -- it protects against heart and bone diseases, for example. But estrogen can have serious side effects, including breast cancer and uterine cancer. If you're near or past menopause, ask your doctor to help you weigh the pros and cons. You can also find useful information at the National Parkinson Foundation, Inc. or at the many links here.