Estrogen combined with standard antipsychotic drugs could relieve symptoms of schizophrenia in women, a study published in the August issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry reveals.

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that affects around 1 percent of the general population, with 2 million men and women being diagnosed every year in the United States as having this disease. It is one of the most mysterious mental illnesses, since the brain of the affected patients is organically “intact,” unlike Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease, where the brain shows distinctive signs of degradation (like the deposition of beta-amyloid protein that kills neurons and leads to dementia).

The disease is characterized by impairments in the perception or expression of reality, most commonly manifesting as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions or disorganized speech and thinking. The disease is far more common in men than in women and is usually diagnosed in late adolescence or early adulthood. There is no cure, but symptoms can be improved with medication.

The estrogen-mental illness link was first recognized more than a century ago but the possibility to use estrogen as treatment in mental illness has been only recently considered.

"Estrogen treatment is a promising new area for future treatment of schizophrenia and potentially for other severe mental illnesses," Jayashri Kulkarni of The Alfred and Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and colleagues wrote in their study.

For the study, they analyzed the effects of estradiol, a form of estrogen, in 102 women of childbearing age with schizophrenia. Half of the women were given 100 mg of estradiol each day for 28 days via skin patches while the others got placebo skin patches. All of them continued their treatment for schizophrenia.

At the end of the study, the researchers found that women on estradiol patches had more improvement in their psychotic symptoms compared with the group that got placebo patches.

The researchers explained that estrogen has a series of neuroprotective and psychoprotective actions such as antioxidant effects and enhancement of cerebral blood flow and cerebral glucose utilization.

The researchers said the treatment with estrogen might benefit especially women affected by schizophrenia who undergo childbirth- or menopause-hormonal changes. It seems that hormonal changes cause deterioration of their conditions.

However, they added larger and longer studies are needed to confirm the benefits of estrogen, a hormone widely used to ease symptoms of menopause and to treat osteoporosis. Pills with the hormone have been linked to strokes and other ailments in previous studies but estrogen patches may be a safer option.

A two-week pilot study involving 52 men showed that adding estrogen to standard treatments also appears to help men with schizophrenia.

The researchers are now planning larger trials to confirm the current findings.

“There is a lot to be done. But I believe that we have opened up a new and promising area of treatment for a debilitating illness in both women and men,” Kulkarni says.