More misinformation in this article from the Atlantic – starting with the title – “What Menopause Does to Women’s Brains”.
It’s not the menopause that’s causing the problems with women’s brains – the menopause is a natural and normal rite of passage, like puberty. The title should be – What Peri-menopausal Syndrome Does to Women’s Brains.
Peri/menopausal Syndrome – as I now call it – is the constellation of symptoms in peri/menopause that includes a decline in brain function.
The articles gets the data right:
Two-thirds of all Alzheimer’s patients are women. Why?
For women, there is a marked decline in brain energy and an increase in Alzheimer’s plaques as they go from premenopausal to fully menopausal.
Estrogen is a neuroprotective hormone. When it declines, the brain is left more vulnerable. So if a woman is somehow predisposed to Alzheimer’s, that’s when the risk manifests itself in her brain.
The loss of estrogen means that glucose metabolism in the brain, its primary fuel, is reduced by about 20 to 25 per cent. That’s why women experience that they’re off their game. They still can play the game, just not as well.
If naturally low glucose metabolism in the brain of a peri/menopausal woman is causing cognitive problems, then the answer is simple: peri/menopausal women MUST switch their energy source from glucose to FAT. This will provide the brain with the energy that it needs and not only will brain function improve, but all the other symptoms completely disappear.
The author goes on to say:
“At one point during my interview with Mosconi, she happened to mention that women who undergo hysterectomies have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s. A chill shot up my spine. In my early 40s, I had a hysterectomy to remove a uterus beleaguered by adenomyosis. I’m certain no one ever warned me of the risk pre-op, even though the information was already out there. I couldn’t have forgone the surgery; my adenomyosis had left me fatally anemic. But I at least could have been informed. I was so upset to learn this, I had to shut off the digital recorder to catch my breath.”
Women need to know that there is a nutritional and lifestyle approach that can completely eliminate this very real worry. The low carb/high fat approach I have developed works to resolve symptoms in 100% of women in my clinic and in the PeriMenoFix course.
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By Sandra Ishkanes
I am a Functional Medicine expert specialising in women’s hormonal health. I work like a health detective, rooting out the underlying causes of hormonal imbalances and I take a whole-body approach to healthcare, combining nutrition, supplements, lifestyle upgrades and cutting-edge biomedical testing.
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