Estrogens still represent an attractive therapeutic approach for Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative condition that goes f ro m m i l d c o g n i t i v e i m p a i r m e n t i n prodromal disease to severely disabling deficits in advanced stages. The risk for AD development, as well as progression and severity, clearly differ between men and women (Pike, 2017). Epidemiological studies have shown that there is a significantly increased prevalence in the development of AD in women compared to men, which is usually explained by the longer lifespan of women. This increased frequency may be due to the interplay between age and sex, in which genetic factors together with hormonal and metabolic patterns play a crucial role. Moreover, cognitive impairment has been confirmed to be greater in women than in men at the same stage of AD, likely due to reduced estrogen levels in postmenopausal women (Laws et al., 2016).