Entering menopause before age 40 increases risk of dementia

Women who enter menopause before their 40th birthday are more likely to develop dementia than those who experience it at 50 to 51 years, the average age of onset of this physiological period.

This is warned by an investigation presented at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association, dedicated to the promotion of and strokes.

“Our study found that women who enter menopause very early have a higher risk of developing dementia later on,” explains Wenting Hao, a researcher at Shandong University in Jinan, China.

“Being aware of this increased risk can help women implement strategies to prevent dementia and work with their doctors to”, Hao holds.

Dementia causes serious changes in the brain that impair a person’s ability to remember, make decisions, and use language.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, followed by vascular dementia, and both types of dementia are more common with age, although there are more types of dementia.

In the study, the researchers looked at the possible relationship between the age of onset of menopause and the diagnosis of dementia.

To do this, , participants in the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database with genetic and health information on half a million people in the UK.

The researchers identified the diagnosis of all types of dementia (Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, and dementias of other causes) and calculated the risk of occurrence based on the age at which the women had entered menopause (before or during middle age). of onset, 50 or 51 years).

In addition, they adjusted the results for factors such as age at last exam, race, education level, tobacco and alcohol use, body mass index, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, income, and physical and fitness activities. leisure.

Women who had entered the age of being diagnosed with dementia, and those who entered menopause before the age of 45, were 1.3 times more likely to be diagnosed with dementia before the age of 65.

Finally, women who entered menopause at age 52 or older had rates of dementia similar to those of women who entered menopause at the median age of onset, which is 50-51 years.

The authors believe that declining estrogen levels may be a factor in the possible connection between early menopause and dementia, since “long-term lack of estrogen increases oxidative stress, and that canand cause cognitive impairment. according to Hao.

In the absence of new studies that extend this information, this study “could provide doctors with a more accurate way to assess a woman’s risk of dementia”assures the researcher.

Weather, Colombia/GDA