Fact check
Brain metabolism
Is it actually true that some women get bumpy during menopause?
Menopause can be associated with phases of confusion, distractibility and forgetfulness (symbol image)
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In young women, the energy metabolism in the brain is largely regulated by estrogens. During the menopause, the concentration of sex hormones decreases. You can find out what consequences this can have here.
Is it actually true that some women get bumpy during menopause?
Yes, that’s right. In young women, it is mainly estrogens that regulate the brain metabolism, i.e. both the transport and uptake of glucose in the neurons and its breakdown there for energy production. But the concentration of sex hormones falls during menopause. Up to 60 percent of women are threatened with a kind of “bioenergetic brain crisis,” as Lisa Mosconi, director of the Women’s Brain Initiative at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, calls it. Because the fuel glucose can no longer be used as efficiently as before, possible consequences, according to Mosconi, can be phases of confusion, distractibility and forgetfulness. The good news: this will pass. And the mind mostly stays intact.
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Brain more prone to damage during menopause
However, experiments by the working group headed by Roberta Diaz Brinton, Director of the UA Center for Innovation in Brain Science at the University of Arizona Health Science, with mice indicate that during starvation mode, energy may be generated in their brain by breaking down ketone bodies, which come from the protective sheaths of the neurons. Scientists are wondering whether such cannibalization could possibly contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s.
In fact, 20 years later, one in five women is diagnosed, but only one in nine men. Why is unclear, but one thing is certain: menopause itself does not cause Alzheimer’s disease, but it may be a time window in which the brain of women with risk factors such as prediabetes, high cholesterol, but also high stress levels can be particularly susceptible to damage. Research has not yet found an answer to this, and it is also not clear whether hormone therapy could help here.
Every woman should therefore take preventive measures – with healthy eating, little stress, adequate sleep and physical activity.
Sources:Scientific online database “ScienceDirect” / Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences