A University of Calgary examine means that extreme signs of menopause can act as early warning indicators for dementia.
Dr. Zahinoor Ismail, a professor of psychiatry, neurology, epidemiology and pathology on the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, mentioned the outcome comes from an ongoing cross-sectional examine about Canadian brains and growing older from CAN-PROTECT.
Ismail mentioned his preliminary curiosity within the results of menopause was sparked years in the past in his medical observe.
“I remember a case from early 2001 with a woman who presented in the emergency room with a whole host of brain symptoms, both cognition and psychiatric, and it turned out she was just in early menopause,” Ismail instructed The Canadian Press.
“So as a substitute of treating her for these neurological and psychiatric situations, we normalized her estrogen and her signs resolved.
“That was the genesis of this study.”
The total examine entails 2,400 folks throughout Canada, who’re requested quite a lot of questions on their cognition, behaviour, perform, well being, wellness, life-style, eating regimen, train, vitamin dietary supplements, medicines, medical and psychiatric situations and high quality of life.
Data from 800 of these topics is getting used to check the consequences of menopause on the mind. A baseline paper on that information was offered on the Canadian Conference on Dementia in Toronto in November, and outcomes are to be up to date yearly.
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“We took women who were post-menopausal and captured the number of symptoms they had during menopause … so everything from those hot flashes that people talk about, neuropsychiatric symptoms such as irritability, mood changes, anxiety and then also neurocognitive symptoms like inattention and poor memory,” he mentioned.
“I centered on the neuropsychiatric and cognitive signs. Because when these emerge and persist in mid-life and later, they’re threat elements for dementia.
“What we found was that the greater number of menopausal symptoms that they had, the more impaired they were and the more symptoms they had.”
Ismail mentioned it additionally turned clear that if the post-menopausal ladies had taken an estrogen-based remedy throughout menopause, they’d fewer neuropsychiatric signs in comparison with those that didn’t take them.
He mentioned earlier research displaying that hormone substitute remedy will increase the danger of stroke by a couple of third, later discovered to be considerably overstated, resulted in a whole era of girls being disadvantaged of the advantages.
“There’s been kind of a rebellion in a way with advocacy for menopausal women to actually be offered hormone therapy replacement again,” he mentioned.
“It’s clear there’s a groundswell of interest once again, and this certainly has been reflected in my clinical experience and from the data of our study.”
© 2024 The Canadian Press
Researchers investigate theory linking severe menopausal symptoms to dementia
