Symptoms of delirium can be prevented with the use of estrogen, according to an in-vitro study in mice.
- Delirium is a state of confusion with changes in behavior like lack of attention
- Women going through menopause often have urinary tract infections, which can cause delirium //
- A recent experimental study on mice shows that estrogen can protect menopausal women from having delirium
Beyond Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) and Delirium: A Systematic Review of UTIs and Neuropsychiatric Disorders.
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Estrogen
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Researchers say that there has been a resurgence of interest in hormone replacement therapy, and this study, which builds on our previous work, shows that it may be a tool to mitigate delirium, and they think it is a major step toward a clinical trial of estrogen in human patients with UTIs.
Delirium and UTIs in Menopausal Women
It is important to look for UTIs in an older woman if she has delirium. In previous studies, researchers found a connection between delirium and an immune-regulating protein called interleukin 6 (IL-6). Events such as lung injury or UTI cause IL-6 to travel through the blood to the brain, causing symptoms such as disorientation and confusion. Estrogen is a known suppressor of IL-6, so the investigators designed experiments to test its effects on UTI-induced delirium.The researchers compared pre- and postmenopausal mice with UTIs and observed their behavior in several types of specialized environments. They found that the mice in which menopause had been induced exhibited symptoms of delirium, such as anxiousness and confusion, while the others did not (3✔ ✔Trusted Source
17β-estradiol ameliorates delirium-like phenotypes in a murine model of urinary tract infection
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When they treated the mice with estrogen, levels of IL-6 in the blood and delirium-like behavior were greatly reduced. The behavioral differences were not related to UTI severity, as bacterial levels in the urine weren’t markedly different between the two groups. The investigators also looked at the direct effects of estrogen on neurons.
Estrogen Helps Reduce Delirium
Researchers exposed individual neurons to an IL-6 inflammation cocktail to create a UTI-like injury. But when we added estrogen to the cocktail, it mitigated the injury. So, we showed that there are at least two ways that estrogen helps reduce the symptoms of delirium. It reduces IL-6 levels in the blood and protects the neurons directly.The exact mechanism of how estrogen acts to protect neurons is still questionable. And before conducting a clinical trial, researchers need to identify which patients with UTIs are most likely to experience delirium and at what point estrogen treatment might be the most effective.
Effective treatment of delirium could be of long-term importance because it is a known risk factor for long-term cognitive impairments, such as Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
- Beyond Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) and Delirium: A Systematic Review of UTIs and Neuropsychiatric Disorders. - (https://europepmc.org/article/MED/26554322)
- Estrogen - (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK538260/)
- 17β-estradiol ameliorates delirium-like phenotypes in a murine model of urinary tract infection - (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-24247-w)
Source-Medindia