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Study Links Menopause Timing to Brain Health Over Decades
Confirmed
In Short: Researchers from the US analyzed health data on 2,603 women, cross-referencing menopause age against markers for memory and brain function, as well as cases of Alzheimer's, for up to 18 years.
Researchers from the US analyzed health data on 2,603 women, cross-referencing menopause age against markers for memory and brain function, as well as cases of Alzheimer's, for up to 18 years.
The study found that earlier menopause was associated with faster cognitive decline, earlier Alzheimer's onset, and greater white matter hyperintensity accumulation.
White matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are bright spots on brain scans that indicate damage to small blood vessels.
In women who went through natural menopause, menopause five years earlier was associated with roughly 15 percent greater WMH volume over the next 10 years.
The researchers highlight the link between earlier natural menopause and the accumulation of white matter hyperintensities as the most striking finding.
Another study published in Nature Communications found that menopause may temporarily halt the normal aging process of the brain, slowing the gradual loss of cortical volume.
The findings suggest that longer exposure to the body's own hormones may help protect the brain, potentially leading to improved treatments and prevention methods.
While the findings do not show a direct cause-and-effect link between earlier menopause and Alzheimer's disease, they highlight several associations that are worthy of future investigation.
What this adds
The study adds the element of time, suggesting that the link between menopause timing and brain changes plays out over decades.
The research addresses an important gap in our understanding of the female brain and its changes during major hormonal transitions.
The pre- and post-menopause data represent only two time points per person following a long period called perimenopause, where the dialogue between the ovary and the brain is already readjusting to the progressive decline of the ovarian reserve.
Background
A 10-year study published in Nature Communications suggests that menopause may temporarily alter the brain's normal aging process, halting the gradual loss of cortical volume and gray matter.
A groundbreaking brain scan study has revealed that the onset of menopause may temporarily alter the brain's normal aging process, according to a report by ScienceAlert.
What's confirmed
- Researchers from the US analyzed health data on 2,603 women, cross-referencing menopause age against markers for memory and brain function, as well as cases of Alzheimer's, for up to 18 years.
- The study found that earlier menopause was associated with faster cognitive decline, earlier Alzheimer's onset, and greater white matter hyperintensity accumulation.
- White matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are bright spots on brain scans that indicate damage to small blood vessels.
- In women who went through natural menopause, menopause five years earlier was associated with roughly 15 percent greater WMH volume over the next 10 years.
- The researchers highlight the link between earlier natural menopause and the accumulation of white matter hyperintensities as the most striking finding.
- Another study published in Nature Communications found that menopause may temporarily halt the normal aging process of the brain, slowing the gradual loss of cortical volume.
- The findings suggest that longer exposure to the body's own hormones may help protect the brain, potentially leading to improved treatments and prevention methods.
- While the findings do not show a direct cause-and-effect link between earlier menopause and Alzheimer's disease, they highlight several associations that are worthy of future investigation.
What's still developing
- The results of the study have now been published in JAMA Network Open.
- It's a connection that's been spotted before, but this latest research adds the element of time, suggesting that the link between menopause timing and these brain changes plays out over decades.
- Potentially, that link could ultimately lead to improved treatments and prevention methods, but it also suggests that brain aging isn't something that only kicks in later in life.
- Going through menopause brings with it major shifts in biology for women, and experts have long wondered whether this could be part of the reason that Alzheimer's disease is notably more common in women than in men.
- Past studies have suggested that the significant drop in estrogen that menopause brings with it could be involved somewhere: a hormone involved in everything from how brain cells connect to how they produce energy.
- "Our findings extend this literature longitudinally, demonstrating that earlier menopause age is associated with faster WMHV accumulation decades later, and specifically in women whose hormonal decline was gradual (spontaneous) rather than abrupt (surgical)," write the researchers.
- For earlier Alzheimer's onset, the statistical association was 1.8 fewer years without Alzheimer's for menopause 10 years earlier – that's a relatively modest effect, but deserving of a mention.
- That’s according to a new study that examined scans of 1,095 female brains across three life stages: first period, pregnancy and menopause.
- The work, published in the journal Nature Communications on September 8, hints that the loss of gray matter volume typically tied to hormone changes doesn’t happen during menopause.
- Moreover, “no one had looked at the changes in the whole brain matter in this menopause transition before,” said study co-author Sophie van ’t Hof, a cognitive neuroscientist at Amsterdam University Medical Centre, during a press conference, reports Claire Cameron at Scientific American.
- Studies suggest these cognitive changes occur because the brain is reorganizing itself, possibly to prepare for bonding with the baby, among other benefits.
- “People often think the brain is just done when you’re an adult, but it changes throughout life,” van ’t Hof tells Science News ’ Bethany Brookshire.
Sources
- ScienceAlertlink
- Smithsonianmaglink
- ScienceAlertlink
- News-Medicallink
- Inewslink
- Science Newslink
- WarpBeat — background on Study Finds Menopause Temporarily Alters Brain's Normal Aging link
- WarpBeat — background on Menopause Temporarily Alters Brain's Normal Aging, Study Finds link
- Ann S. Bowers WBHI — video link