A new study from Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine and Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science has found that women who undergo early menopause are at higher risk for cognitive decline, emphasizing the need for targeted dementia risk assessments.
A study conducted by researchers at Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine and Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science has uncovered a consequential link between early menopause and accelerated cognitive decline. According to findings published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, women who entered menopause before the age of 40 experienced worse cognitive outcomes compared to those who entered menopause after 50.
This discovery could be pivotal for clinicians assessing dementia risk in women.
The significance of this research lies in its potential to inform preventative strategies and risk assessments for dementia, a condition that disproportionately affects women across the globe. The study fills a crucial gap in data, addressing how early menopause affects age-related cognitive trajectories, which had previously been insufficiently studied.
Dementia may have risk factors specific to women, the research team noted, shedding light on why understanding the impacts of menopause is essential. Early menopause has already been linked to a higher risk of depression, itself a known risk factor for dementia, raising the stakes in further identifying how menopause influences cognitive health.
Data for the study was derived from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, encompassing 4,726 women and 4,286 men. Participants’ cognitive functions were assessed through various measures, including orientation, immediate and delayed recall, and verbal fluency. The research classified the age at menopause into three categories: under 40, between 40 and 49, and 50 or older.
“When looking for associations, we want to rule out as many other modifiable risk factors for dementia as possible,” lead author Miharu Nakanishi, of Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, said in a news release. “Since early menopause increases the risk of depression, which then increases the risk of dementia, we had to control for this factor to determine if early menopause in itself was a direct risk factor.”
The study’s results, adjusted for baseline risk factors, indicated that women who experienced menopause before the age of 40 had significantly worse cognitive function two years later in areas like orientation and memory recall compared to those who entered menopause after 50.
Interestingly, the cognitive function of women who underwent menopause at age 50 or later was even better than that of the male participants.
Despite the known benefits of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for alleviating menopausal symptoms, the study found no association between HRT and cognitive function, suggesting that other mechanisms might underlie the cognitive decline linked to early menopause.
The findings imply that women facing early menopause constitute a high-risk group for cognitive decline, specifically emphasizing the need for further research on the relationship between female hormone levels and cognitive function.
“Understanding this relationship in-depth could potentially help us design treatments that delay the onset of dementia in at-risk patients,” Nakanishi added, underscoring the broader potential impact of the study.
Source: Tohoku University