No causal relationship
In an accompanying editorial, Kejal Kantarci, MD, a professor of radiology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., noted that three clinical trials, including the WHIMS of Younger Women (WHIMS-Y) in 2013, did not show a link between cognitive function and HT.
“Although [Dr.] Pourhadi and colleagues’ study was done carefully using national registries, the observed associations could be artefactual and should not be used to infer a causal relationship between hormone therapy and dementia risk. These findings cannot inform shared decision-making about use of hormone therapy for menopausal symptoms,” she states in the editorial.
Also commenting on the findings, Amanda Heslegrave, PhD, a senior research fellow at the U.K. Dementia Research Institute, London, said in a release from the U.K.’s Science Media Centre that while the study “may cause alarm for women taking [HT], it highlights just how much we still don’t know about the effects of hormones on women’s brain health, and with promising treatments on the horizon, it should be a call to action to make this a priority area of research.”
There was no specific funding for the study. Dr. Kantarci reported working on an unpaid educational activity on Alzheimer’s disease for Biogen and is the PI on a study of a PET imaging ligand for Alzheimer’s disease, to which Eli Lilly and Avid Radiopharmaceuticals donated supplies.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.