Looking after your brain with hormones 16-08-2008 Your cholesterol levels are not only pertinent to the health of your heart.  Recent evidence indicates that in midlife high total cholesterol levels and low HDL or high density lipoprotein the so-called good cholesterol are associated with an increased risk of late-life cognitive impairment. Cholesterol appears to be associated with the deposition of the substance called Beta-amyloid that is thought to be the major driver for the development of Alzheimer’s dementia.  If you wondering how to lift your HDL levels and lower total cholesterol ‘You have the power’ has an excellent segment with pointers as to how to achieve this.   What’s even more fascinating is that in late-life high cholesterol does not carry a risk for dementia and even appears to be beneficial.  Cholesterol is not all bad as it does a lot of good things in your body one of which is to help with synapse development, these being the connections between the nerve cells of your brain.  Therefore cholesterol-lowering drugs, that might have adverse effects on cholesterol metabolism in the brain, when used in late-life, may be detrimental by decreasing brain plasticity.    Cortisol is known as the stress hormone and while having adequate amounts of this hormone is necessary to get you out of bed in the morning and help you concentrate, cortisol overdrive which can happen with aging is destructive to the hippocampus, that part of the brain which is intimately connected with learning and memory.  One way that women and men can protect the hippocampus is with the hormone oestrogen.  In middle-aged mice oestrogen administration facilitated the formation of new nerve cells and rescued the hippocampus from the destructive effects of excess cortisol.  If you’re wondering how on earth you are going to protect yourself with oestrogen if you’re a male then you can rest easy.  If you a making reasonable amounts of testosterone your body will use this hormone to make oestrogen in your brain.