Higher dementia risk seen in women with common health issue

An estimated 80% of women have some type of menopause symptoms — and the more symptoms they experience, the greater the chances of developing dementia later in life.The findings were published in the journal PLOS One following a study by the University of Calgary.The researchers analyzed the data of 896 postmenopausal women who participated in the Canadian Platform for Research Online to Investigate Health, Quality of Life, Cognition, Behaviour, Function, and Caregiving in Aging (CAN-PROTECT) study.The women reported their perimenopausal symptoms to researchers.Their cognitive function was measured using the Everyday Cognition (ECog-II) Scale and the Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI-C), with higher scores indicating greater severity.Those with greater menopausal symptoms had higher scores for both cognitive tests, indicating more severe decline. “One of the most interesting findings was the association between menopausal symptom burden and mild behavioral impairment (MBI) symptoms — a syndrome increasingly recognized as an early indicator of dementia risk,” lead study author Zahinoor Ismail, M.D., professor of psychiatry, neurology, epidemiology and pathology at the University of Calgary, told Fox News Digital.“These novel findings highlight the need to consider not only cognitive changes, but also mood, social interaction and personality changes that emerge and persist in later life following menopause.”While hormone therapy was not significantly associated with cognitive function, it was shown to have a significant link to fewer MBI symptoms, according to the researchers, emphasizing the need for further research into the potential role of hormone therapy in long-term brain health.“Interestingly, participants who reported using estrogen-based hormone therapy during perimenopause had significantly lower mild behavioral impairment symptom severity,” noted Ismail.Alexa Fiffick, a board-certified family medicine physician specializing...