14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists at Monash University in Australia now claim that women who wish to keep their minds sharp in old age should only take up the habit of applying testosterone gel on their skin on a daily basis.
Thus, these researchers say that, according to their investigations, said male hormone benefits the female brain. More precisely, it boosts the memory and might even help stave off dementia.
According to Daily Mail, these statements are backed up by data collected while carrying out a series of experiments with the help of 96 volunteers.
The volunteers were all healthy post-menopausal women, the same source informs us.
As part of this investigation into how testosterone affects women, some of the volunteers were asked to rub testosterone gel on their skin on a daily basis for a period of roughly six months. Others were given a placebo.
The researchers tested the women's short-term memory and their learning abilities both at the beginning of the study and at the end.
They found that, courtesy of the testosterone they had been exposed to, the women in the first group all experienced a noteworthy improvement in their brain function.
The scientists theorize that this boost also translated into their having fewer chances of developing dementia at some point in their lives, seeing how the connections between their brain cells had surely grown stronger.
Commenting on the outcome of these experiments, Jess Smith from the Alzheimer's Society said that, “This small study indicates a possible future avenue for research into memory loss in women.”
Still, “We will need to wait for these findings to be peer-reviewed and published before we can evaluate what they could mean for people with dementia,” the researcher added.
Presently, dementia affects twice more women than it does men, and specialists are trying to figure out why this is the case. By the looks of it, the lack of testosterone in a woman's body once she hits menopause might have a say in the matter.