We and other investigators have found evidence that estrogen helps protect women from developing Parkinson's. So, a gene variant that would decrease estrogen production or activity would put those women at greater risk for the disease. |
What we are talking about is still-fertile women, finished with having children, who have some event that leads to surgery to remove their uterus, and the surgeon removes one or both ovaries to prevent cancer. |
What we showed is that for the surgery to be a risk factor, it has to be done before menopause. If before age 46 you remove two ovaries, you get a 70 percent increased risk of dementia. And we discovered that women who have only one ovary removed before age 38 -- this is a surgery more often done in younger women -- we see a 260 percent increase in dementia. That is quite a dramatic and somewhat unexpected finding. |