Estrogen replacement may reduce severity of Parkinson's in
postmenopausal women
WESTPORT, Apr 30, 1999 (Reuters Health) - Estrogen replacement
therapy may delay the progression of Parkinson's disease (PD), at
least in postmenopausal women in the early stages of the disease.
Dr. Rachel J. Saunders-Pullman, of Beth Israel Medical Center in
New York, and a multicenter team reviewed the medical records
of nearly 1,200 women with parkinsonism who were seen at the
Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center between 1984 and 1997.
The investigators identified 138 women who had not yet been
started on L-dopa and who were able to provide a reliable
estrogen therapy history. Of these women, 104 had never used
estrogen and 34 had a history of hormone replacement therapy.
Women taking estrogen had significantly lower mean scores on the
Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale compared with
nonestrogen-users, at 19.6 and 26.9, respectively. Among the
characteristics of the estrogen therapy group were a longer
duration of symptoms and earlier symptom onset, a higher level of
education and more pervasive use of deprenyl or dopamine
agonists compared with nonusers.
"These more educated women may have been more attuned to
body changes or may have had easier access to medical care and
may have been more likely to have medications prescribed," the
team explains in their report.
Dr. Saunders-Pullman described similar findings last May at the
American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting. As reported
on Reuters Health, she presented data showing a reduced rate of
disease progression over 2 years in estrogen users within a
population of 171 postmenopausal women with PD who had
never used L-dopa.
Confirmation of these findings will not only have important
implications for the use of estrogen replacement in women with
PD, but may also shed some light on "...the epidemiology of the
gender differences in PD," the authors conclude in the April issue
of Neurology. Until prospective data are available, they
recommend "...that estrogen therapy should not be avoided and
may be beneficial in early PD, at least prior to the initiation of
L-dopa."
Neurology 1999;52:1417-1421.
Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Reuters Ltd.
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Judith Richards, London, Ontario, Canada
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