About 60% of people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease are women, according to the Alzheimer Research Foundation. Experts also point out that women are about twice as likely to develop the disease during their lifetime.
How can this difference between men and women be explained? Researchers at Scripps Research and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (in the United States) tried to answer this question by examining the brains of 40 men and women, half of whom had died of Alzheimer’s disease.
Estrogens, protective hormones against Alzheimer’s disease
Result ? The American researchers found that, on average, women had 6 times higher levels of SNO-C3 protein than men. However, this protein results from a particular biochemical phenomenon (the S-nitrosylation process) which is partly responsible for neuronal inflammation at the origin of cognitive decline.
Furthermore, scientists advance the hypothesis that before menopause, estrogens play a protective role at the neuronal level, against the process of S-nitrosylation. However, this protection would disappear with the cessation of ovarian function, hence a statistical “peak” in women vis-à-vis Alzheimer’s from the age of 50-60.
As a reminder, in France, approximately 900,000 people suffer from this neurodegenerative pathology. Alzheimer’s disease is rare before the age of 65; at age 80, 15% of French people are affected.
Source : Science Advances