Brain Fog and Menopause

Again, know this is me just educating. This has nothing to do with plastic surgery, other than I see a ton of women come in during perimenopause and menopause. Knowing about brain fog, I am glad I print out all my instructions. No excuses ladies!

Estrogen affects the brain. It increases blood flow, connectivity, and serotonin activity (mood/depression).

Brain fog has been researched. There are changes seen when women are studied: they have a harder time with recall, reduced speed of processing information, and memory tasks, though one study which compared women to men found that even after menopause women still did BETTER than age matched men. (Ha! Take that!) And these changes are TEMPORARY and disappear after menopause.

• Sleep issues, anxiety, and stress may contribute to the fuzzy thinking.
• Women with later menopause have lower risk of dementia,
• Though some studies for hormone replacement started later after menopause showed INCREASED risk of dementia and brain vessel changes. “More studies need to be done.” It does seem that you need to start hormone replacement around the time of menopause. You need to start the hormone replacement in your 50s for brain benefits. “As the continuum of neurological health progresses from healthy to unhealthy, so too do the benefits of HRT. If neurons are healthy at the time of estrogen exposure, their response to estrogen is beneficial.” If the neurons are unhealthy (HRT started 10 years or more after menopause) estrogen may make her condition worse.
• Remember the WHI study was not younger women in menopause. The average age was 63, and a significant number of them were obese, smokers, and hypertensive.
• There was some concern it may increase the risk for stroke, but two randomized controlled trials done showed no increase in stroke risk. The infamous WHI study showed stroke risk because estrogen use was associated with a nonfatal increased stroke risk by 12/10,000, and that has been called into question by detection bias and statistical manipulations. Regardless of whether you are a scientist, knowing the risk was 12 people with a transient neurologic change out a group of 10,000 women is a small risk.
• My Estrogen Matters book cites a study of 1,124 women in an observational study (not a randomized placebo study) which showed Alzheimers risk was reduced by 60% in those women on estrogen. He then sites a study of 8.877 women in the US showing 45% decreased risk of dementia, a Denmark study showing 64% decreased risk, and an Italian study of 2816 women showing a 70% decreased risk.