So we know that 60% of people going through the menopause transition report cognitive complaints. Sometimes it’s called brain fog, which is a very vague description. And people do worry that maybe this is indicative of dementia. But it turns out that most of the women who experience cognitive complaints during the menopause transition do not, it’s not indicative of dementia, but it does reveal that some people are at greater risk for developing dementia later, which has to do with some of the underlying health risks that put women at greater risk for cognitive complaints in the menopause transition...
So we know that 60% of people going through the menopause transition report cognitive complaints. Sometimes it’s called brain fog, which is a very vague description. And people do worry that maybe this is indicative of dementia. But it turns out that most of the women who experience cognitive complaints during the menopause transition do not, it’s not indicative of dementia, but it does reveal that some people are at greater risk for developing dementia later, which has to do with some of the underlying health risks that put women at greater risk for cognitive complaints in the menopause transition. So one of those sets of risk factors are cardiometabolic health and disease. So for example, things like obesity, diabetes, smoking, hypertension, and high cholesterol. Those are things that put women at greater risk, both of having cognitive complaints in the menopause transition and also greater risk for Alzheimer’s disease later. Yeah, so the MenoCog study is our attempt to better understand which people are more likely to experience cognitive complaints during the menopause transition. And we’re really focused on those cardiometabolic risk factors. So what we’re trying to do is recruit 150 women who are in perimenopause or early postmenopausal stages. So that’s the period where they’re beginning to miss their menstrual cycles or have recently stopped having their menstrual cycles. And we’re interested in things like whether or not their hypertension, obesity, diabetes, whether these things put them at greater risk of developing cognitive complaints. So we’re looking at protective factors. So for example, people who do more exercise or who have higher levels of education may be protected from having cognitive complaints. And some of the risk factors include things like having more hot flashes, having these cardiometabolic risk factors, or having insomnia. People who have those risk factors are more likely to also have cognitive complaints. So part of what we’re trying to do is to figure out which of these risk factors puts women at the greatest risk so that we can find points of intervention. So for example, to maybe develop an exercise intervention or a sleep intervention or a dietary intervention that might help reduce these symptoms for women. Right now, there are currently no approved treatments for cognitive complaints in the menopause transition. And it’s really something we’d like to be able to offer options for women to help reduce these burdensome complaints that they have, which can affect their daily performance, their work, and so on.
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