Hormones change as we age in dramatic ways that can alter our mental and physical health – and the science around those hormones is changing too.

A new study just published in the journal Neurology sheds new light on the ways that estrogen may protect the brain as it ages, and the results are promising.

The research examined the health outcomes among 352 cognitively unimpaired women who underwent a brain MRI at age 70 and again five years after the first scan. Out of the group, women who had longer lifetime exposure to estrogen through oral birth control and menopausal hormone therapy showed fewer physiological markers associated with Alzheimer’s and had healthier brains overall.

Scientists have already established a connection between longer reproductive spans – basically, the number of years after periods start and before they stop – with reduced brain aging later in life. That research and other findings suggest that estrogen has a strong neuroprotective effect, basically working as armor for the brain against cognitive decline. But as women and other people with periods age, their estrogen levels begin to decline, lowering the hormonal barrier that protects the brain during the body’s reproductive years.

Estrogen supports cognitive health in a number of ways. Those functions include reducing inflammation, boosting blood flow, and protecting the brain’s white matter – the connective tissue that works as a superhighway between neurons.

“The long-term impact of endogenous and exogenous estrogen fluctuations on late-life [cerebral small vessel disease] severity remains poorly understood,” the paper’s authors wrote.

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