Menopause puts the brain at risk. Researchers are starting to learn why
Shifts in blood proteins could point to ways to fight menopause “brain fog” and prevent later dementia
Women are more likely than men to develop dementia, and not just because they tend to live longer. One reason may be menopause, the time in midlife when sex hormones drop and menstruation stops—and which some researchers are coming to see as a stress test for the brain.
Menopause “affects brain health, for sure,” says neurologist Riley Bove of the University of California (UC) San Francisco, who studies its impacts on multiple sclerosis and other neurological disorders. She and others want to protect the brain during and after this transition—but that means identifying just how menopause puts the brain at risk.
A study published last week in Nature Medicine has found clues in the blood of women in their 40s and 50s: proteins related to brain function, inflammation, and neurodegenerative disease that are elevated during menopause. Other ongoing studies are following groups of women over time—including during the lesser studied perimenopausal stage, from just before menstruation ends to 1 year after—to reveal processes leading to short- and long-term cognitive problems.
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