Weight gain, mood swings, hot flashes, and vaginal dryness – these are symptoms that most women are associated with menopause. Another untold condition that can be brought about by menopause is Brain mista term commonly used by women experiencing menopause, explaining sudden cloudiness with memory and focus.
Brain fog can raise alarm bells for dementia and other serious illnesses – especially since research has linked menopause to dementia – but just because hormones travel through menopause, occasional memory and concentration issues don’t necessarily mean they have problems.
Why menopause is associated with dementia
65% of people who currently suffer from dementia are women. Age is the biggest risk factor for dementia, and although women have a longer life expectancy than men, age alone does not fully explain the gap.
Currently, scientists don’t fully understand why women develop dementia at a higher rate than men, but the general theory supported by recent research is that it may be related to the hormone estrogen. Both sexes produce estrogen, but women are the main female sex hormone, which means they have significantly higher levels of estrogen.
Estrogen levels drop during menopause, causing a series of reactions in the body. Meanwhile, men produce testosterone at a stable rate throughout their lifetime. The amount of testosterone circulating through the body is converted to brain estrogen through a process called aromatase.
Men usually do not have a dramatic testosterone drop to the extent that women lose estrogen during menopause, so women who have experienced menopause have lower brain levels compared to men of similar ages.
This theory correlates with recent research linking early menopause and dementia. a 2022 Research Looking at health data from 154,291 postmenopausal women in the UK, women who enter menopause around the age of 45 are considered early menopause, but are 30% more likely to be diagnosed with the disease before age 65 compared to those who have menopause at age 50 (average age for American and British women).
Brain fog and dementia – is there a difference?
Brain mist is a momentary lack of clarity in memory or focus, and dementia is a progressive chronic disease. However, even minor changes in cognitive function can lead to panic over Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia. Don’t be surprised if you find your memories become a little sharper as you get older. It is very common for women after the age of 40 to experience brain fog, which can be exacerbated by menopause.
If you have always had exceptional memories and have had no issues with multitasking or recalling your to-do list, it may be jarring to forget what you’ve entered the room and went there, but it could be normal age-related amnesia.
According to Alzheimer’s Disease Association,The symptoms of normal brain fog are as follows:
- Sometimes you need to remember how to do things like using new technology
- You can make mistakes when balancing numbers
- I’m struggling to put the right words
- Usually, you don’t make decisions
- Lose what you use frequently
- Having a concrete way to do things when something confuses your routine and becoming frustrated
- Feeling exhausted about work, family and normal social obligations
However, if you are experiencing any of the following 10 warning signs, the Alzheimer’s Association recommends consulting with your doctor.
- It finds problems and plans very difficult to solve, such as paying invoices and following simple steps.
- Continuous amnesia that disrupts your daily activities
- Confusion with time and place
- There are problems with familiar tasks such as driving somewhere.
- The problems of understanding spatial relationships and visual images.
- You don’t accidentally put things down, like leaving the TV in your car, and usually don’t put them down
- Decrease or inadequate judgments when handling daily tasks such as finances and personal hygiene;
- Changes in mood and personality, such as turning the hair trigger when something is out of your comfort zone
- Increased withdrawal from social activities and work
Is hormone replacement therapy helpful?
Further research is needed to investigate the relationship between hormones and dementia, but recent studies have suggested that hormone replacement therapy may help prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) is a common treatment for menopause symptoms.
tTwo types of HRT are also known as combination therapy, estrogen therapy and estrogen progesterone therapy (EPT). As the name suggests, estrogen therapy involves taking estrogen only. Estrogens may be administered by healthcare providers in a variety of forms, including topical creams and gels, oral tablets, dipsitories, and vaginal rings.
Combination therapy combines doses of estrogen and progesterone (also known as progestin). Progestins help reduce the risk of uterine cancer. In the intact uterus that have been stopped, estrogen-only therapy has a higher incidence of uterine cancer. When menstruation stops and stops draining the lining of the uterus, estrogen can cause overgrowth of cells in the uterus, which can lead to cancer.
a 2023 Research Announcing in the Frontier of Aging Neuroscience, women who took hormones in the middle stage to treat menopause symptoms were less likely to develop dementia than their peers who were not taking estrogen. However, this was not the case for women over the age of 65 and taking estrogen.
Although clinical trials have not generally found that estrogen protects against dementia, findings from this study suggest that estrogen supplementation during the early mid-term of menopause may prevent or delay the Alzheimer’s disease process.
Furthermore, estrogen-only therapy is usually only used in women who have undergone hysterectomy, but the analysis shows that progestins used in combination therapy may blunt the preventive effect of estrogens (researchers note that the data are very diverse and further research is needed).
If you are approaching menopause and are concerned about the possibility of dementia, discuss options with your healthcare provider who advises you on the best behavior.
