Higher dementia risk seen in women with common health issue
An estimated 80% of women have some type of menopause symptoms — and the more symptoms they experience, the greater the chances of developing dementia later in life.
The findings were published in the journal PLOS One following a study by the University of Calgary.
The researchers analyzed the data of 896 postmenopausal women who participated in the Canadian Platform for Research Online to Investigate Health, Quality of Life, Cognition, Behaviour, Function, and Caregiving in Aging (CAN-PROTECT) study.
The women reported their perimenopausal symptoms to researchers. Their cognitive function was measured using the Everyday Cognition (ECog-II) Scale and the Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI-C), with higher scores indicating greater severity.
Those with greater menopausal symptoms had higher scores for both cognitive tests, indicating more severe decline.
"One of the most interesting findings was the association between menopausal symptom burden and mild behavioral impairment (MBI) symptoms — a syndrome increasingly recognized as an early indicator of dementia risk," lead study author Zahinoor Ismail, M.D., professor of psychiatry, neurology, epidemiology and pathology at the University of Calgary, told Fox News Digital.
"These novel findings highlight the need to consider not only cognitive changes, but also mood, social interaction and personality changes that emerge and persist in later life following menopause."
"These novel findings highlight the need to consider not only cognitive changes, but also mood, social interaction and personality changes."
While hormone therapy was not significantly associated with cognitive function, it was shown to have a significant link to fewer MBI symptoms, according to the researchers, emphasizing the need for further research into the potential role of hormone therapy in long-term brain health.
"Interestingly, participants who reported using estrogen-based hormone therapy during perimenopause had significantly lower mild behavioral impairment symptom severity," noted Ismail.
Alexa Fiffick, a board-certified family medicine physician specializing in menopause, stated that previous data has shown higher symptom burden is somehow related to decreased cognitive function and possibly dementia.
Some studies have shown that even when hot flashes aren't perceived by the woman, they are still associated with worsened cognitive function, according to the Ohio doctor.
"It is believed that the vasomotor symptoms are correlated with development of white matter hyperintensities in the brain, akin to what vascular dementia looks like on imaging," Fiffick, who was not involved in the new study, told Fox News Digital.
"We have yet to obtain the data that treating VMS will prevent cognitive decline, but are hopeful that with menopausal hormone therapy and other non-hormonal options, we may be able to obtain this data in the near future."
The researchers acknowledged several limitations of the study.
"This study is cross-sectional, meaning it captures a snapshot in time rather than tracking changes over the years," Ismail told Fox News Digital.
This means it can only identify associations between menopause symptoms and cognitive and behavioral health, but cannot determine whether the symptoms directly cause the changes in brain health.
"To better understand the long-term impact of menopause on dementia risk, future research should follow participants over time and incorporate biological data, such as hormone levels and brain-related biomarkers (we are, in fact, doing this now)," Ismail added.
The study also did not assess the severity of the symptoms, which could play a key role in understanding risk.
Another limitation is that the study focused on the most commonly reported menopause symptoms, but it's possible that some participants experienced additional symptoms.
"In fact, it's reported that there may be 30+ symptoms that females may experience when undergoing the menopause transition," said Ismail. "While we included an 'other symptoms' category, it may not fully reflect the range of experiences."
The study also did not distinguish between different types and formulations of hormone therapy.
"Future studies will be able to explore whether specific types of HT have different effects on brain health," Ismail noted.
"Brain scans of women in menopause reveal real structural and metabolic changes, and this study reinforces that we can't just brush these symptoms off as 'normal aging.'"
Tamsen Fadal, a New York menopause expert and author of the upcoming book "How to Menopause: Take Charge of Your Health, Reclaim Your Life, and Feel Even Better than Before," said she was not surprised by the results of the study.
"Research has been pointing to this connection for a while," she told Fox News Digital. "Brain scans of women in menopause reveal real structural and metabolic changes, and this study reinforces that we can't just brush these symptoms off as 'normal aging.'"
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health
"For too long, women have been experiencing brain fog, memory lapses and mood changes, and many of us have been dismissed," Fadal went on.
"This research just reinforces that menopause is a neurological shift as much as it is a hormonal one."
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