Later-life estrogen therapy linked to lower dementia risk in new study

For decades, the question of whether estrogen might shield the aging brain from dementia has lingered at the edge of medicine's understanding. A new study of more than 21,000 women, published in Neurology, adds a meaningful chapter to that inquiry: women who used estrogen-only hormone therapy after age 70 showed markedly fewer biological signs of Alzheimer's disease and were nearly 40 percent less likely to receive a dementia diagnosis. The researchers are careful to frame this as association rather than causation, and the gap between historical prescribing practices and today's protocols mean