A Stanford study has found that women who used oestrogen-only menopausal hormone therapy were less likely to show Alzheimer’s-related brain changes or dementia. The findings may add to evidence that hormone treatment could influence brain health after menopause, although they do not establish that the therapy directly prevents Alzheimer’s disease.

Published in Neurology on 12 August, the study examined post-mortem data from 21,462 participants. Researchers compared 258 women who reported using oestrogen-only therapy with roughly 2,701 who reported no menopausal hormone therapy, assessing their brains for Alzheimer’s indicators such as amyloid changes; the reported reduction in risk was about 35%.