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The age you reach menopause may be linked to your future brain health year study finds
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.
Earlier menopause age was associated with faster cognitive decline, earlier Alzheimer's disease onset, and greater white matter hyperintensity accumulation, according to the study.
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 study also found that earlier natural menopause was linked to a slightly faster decline in overall cognition and episodic memory.
While the findings don't show a direct cause-and-effect link between earlier menopause and Alzheimer's disease, they highlight several associations worth further investigation.
The research adds the element of time, suggesting that the link between menopause timing and brain changes plays out over decades.
The study's results extend previous literature, demonstrating that earlier menopause age is associated with faster WMH volume accumulation decades later.
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.
The study addresses an important gap in our understanding of the female brain and its changes during major hormonal transitions.
In a separate study published in Nature Communications, brain scans revealed that the onset of menopause may temporarily halt the normal aging process of the brain, slowing the gradual loss of cortical volume.
This study found no decreases in gray matter during menopause, in contrast to the changes observed during puberty and pregnancy.
The results hint at how hormone ebbs and flows over a lifetime are reflected in brain structure.
What this adds
The new study in JAMA Network Open adds the element of time, suggesting that the link between menopause timing and brain changes plays out over decades.
The research in Nature Communications addresses an important gap in our understanding of the female brain and its changes during major hormonal transitions.
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.
The study highlights the need for further investigation into the complex relationship between hormonal changes and brain health.
Background
A new study published in JAMA Network Open finds earlier menopause is associated with faster cognitive decline and greater white matter hyperintensity accumulation.
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.
What's confirmed
- "Earlier menopause age was associated with faster cognitive decline (global and episodic), earlier Alzheimer's disease onset, and greater white matter hyperintensity accumulation, with the largest effect sizes for structural outcomes observed in spontaneous menopause," write the researchers in their published paper.
- 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.
- To take a closer look, researchers from the US tapped into health data on 2,603 women, cross-referencing menopause age against a number of markers for memory and brain function, as well as cases of Alzheimer's, for up to 18 years.
- While the findings don't show a direct cause-and-effect link between earlier menopause and Alzheimer's disease, there were several associations worth highlighting that are worthy of future investigation.
- "Associations with total brain volume loss were present but modest." The researchers highlight the link between earlier natural menopause (without surgery) and the accumulation of white matter hyperintensities as "the most striking" finding.
- Essentially, these 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 estimate – assuming the peak difference they saw holds steady.
- “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.
- 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,” Susana Carmona, a neuroscientist at Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón in Spain who wasn’t involved in the study, tells Science News.
What's still developing
- The results of the study have now been published in JAMA Network Open.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- “This study provides the first direct longitudinal comparison of brain structural changes across all three major female hormonal transitions,” Magdalena Martínez-García, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara who was not involved in the work, tells the outlet.
- The participants self-reported their stages of menopause and did not use diagnostic tests.
- Yet during the third female hormonal transition period—menopause—the organ seems to hit pause on rewiring.
- What’s more, aging-related brain shrinkage also temporarily halts during this time.
- Gray matter largely consists of nerve cell bodies that help process information, and much of it is in the brain’s wrinkly outer layer, or cerebral cortex.