Can stress increase Alzheimer's disease risk in women?

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the accumulation of β-amyloid peptides and neurofibrilllary tangles in brain, resulting in neuronal death and loss of cognitive abilities. It has been hypothesized that longstanding psychological stress can result in neural degeneration and AD due to pathological alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. In recent years several epidemiological studies been published on stress as a risk factor for AD. As women are more likely to suffer from stress-related psychiatric disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and clinical burnout syndrome, special effort has been made according to the gender differences in risk of AD. However, few studies have stratified for gender, due to small sample sizes and limited statistic power, and no reliable findings have been found. Additional longitudinal studies are therefore needed for studying gender differences and for determining what mediates the stress and AD association, in both genders.