With more than 24 million people globally living with dementia without a cure in sight, there is a lot of focus on ways to prevent and delay cognitive impairment. A new study suggests that severe menopause symptoms such as hot flashes and depression can negatively affect cognitive function in postmenopausal women. Results of the study are published online today in Menopause , the journal of The Menopause Society.
In conjunction with our aging population, dementia diagnoses are on the rise. It is estimated that 4.6 million new cases are diagnosed every year, which translates into one person being diagnosed with dementia every 7 seconds.
That means dementia cases are expected to double every 20 years, reaching 81.1 million by 2040. The good news is that medical experts estimate that 40% of cases of Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, can be prevented or, at minimum, delayed.
Because of this fact, there is a lot of interest in identifying risk factors. Recent research has focused on the importance of estradiol in female cognitive aging. Because the menopause transition is characterized by a decline in estrogen, postmenopausal women are at an increased risk of dementia.
A new study involving nearly 1,300 late-postmenopausal women from nine Latin American countries suggests that severe menopause symptoms such as hot flashes, sleep, and mood disturbances were linked with cognitive impairment. Whether effectively treating hot flashes with hormone therapy or other .