Relationships between mood and estradiol (E-2) levels in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients

This study investigates the relationship between mood and estradiol (E-2) l evels and assesses the prevalence of mood symptoms in Alzheimer's disease ( AD) patients compared to healthy elderly controls. Fifty-two AD patients (2 6 men, 23 estrogen non-using women and three estrogen-using women), mean ag e 76.2 years, were recruited and assessed with the Geriatric Depression Sca le (GDS), a test of mood, and a radioimmunoassay measure of E-2 levels at t he time of testing. The AD patients were compared to a control group of age and gender-matched healthy elderly men and women estrogen-users and non-us ers. No differences were found between the AD patients and the controls in overall E-2 levels, but, as expected, the women estrogen-users in both the AD and control groups had higher E-2 levels than the men and the female est rogen non-users. Both groups of men had higher E-2 levels than the estrogen non-using women. There was a significant negative correlation between E-2 levels and GDS scores in the full sample, which was particularly strong in the estrogen-using women. This indicates that those subjects with higher E- 2 levels had less mood symptomatology. Overall, mood scores in the AD patie nts were higher than in the healthy controls, indicating higher levels of d epressive symptomatology; the highest depression scores occurred in the AD women who were estrogen non-users. This suggests that depressive symptoms a re common in AD patients, and that women with AD who are not taking estroge n replacement may be especially vulnerable to depression.