The peri-menopause in a woman’s life: a systemic inflammatory phase that enables later neurodegenerative disease, 2020, Raval et al

Open access, https://jneuroinflammation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12974-020-01998-9

 

"This review will present an overview of the menopausal transition as an inflammatory event, with associated systemic and central nervous system inflammation..."

"Wearily I sit here, pain and misery my only companions. Why stop now just when I’m hating it?” –Marvin

FML. Me, Female, aged 45.

 

If it is any consolation, I am 66 and had to have a hysterectomy when I was 41. I presume I had a menopause but it was completely lost in the general MEness of the years

 

Neuroscientist Lisa Mosconi: ""For every man suffering from Alzheimer's, there are two women. So why is that?"

Great TED talk here.

Men have more testosterone, women have more estrogens. But what really matters here is that these hormones differ in their longevity. Men's testosterone doesn't run out until late in life, which is a slow and pretty much symptom-free process, of course.

Women's estrogens, on the other hand, start fading in midlife, during menopause, which is anything but symptom-free. We associate menopause with the ovaries, but when women say that they're having hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, memory lapses, depression, anxiety, those symptoms don't start in the ovaries. They start in the brain. Those are neurological symptoms. We're just not used to thinking about them as such. So why is that? Why are our brains impacted by menopause?

Well, first of all, our brains and ovaries are part of the neuroendocrine system. As part of the system, the brain talks to the ovaries and the ovaries talk back to the brain, every day of our lives as women. So the health of the ovaries is linked to the health of the brain. And the other way around. At the same time, hormones like estrogen are not only involved in reproduction, but also in brain function. And estrogen in particular, or estradiol, is really key for energy production in the brain.

At the cellular level, estrogen literally pushes neurons to burn glucose to make energy. If your estrogen is high, your brain energy is high. When your estrogen declines though, your neurons start slowing down and age faster. And studies have shown that this process can even lead to the formation of amyloid plaques, or Alzheimer's plaques, which are a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

 

@Trish

I've been following Maria Schiver's ALZ research for women.

 

@Mithriel did you take any hormone replacement?

@Mij I've had to take Progesterone since I was 38 because I stopped making it, possibly because of taking the contraceptive pill.

Only by using bio identical progesterone cream could my insane periods be controlled.

I've wondered if I'll avoid the horrors of menopause because I'm already using a treatment which is now the preferred hormone treatment of informed doctors for menopausal women.

They don't give estrogen at all.

This research isn't reassuring. It's a pain in the... Brain, I suppose. Which is quite inflamed enough already.

Why stop now, just when I'm hating it? - Marvin.

 

From what I can see in the literature you are probably right. Incidence at a given age seems to be the same for men and women overall, although studies in different countries vary (one in the UK put incidence higher in men). There are a lot of papers talking about reasons for dementia being skewed differently for men and women but I am unclear how good the evidence is and it does not affect the fact that the risk looks to be much the same for both sexes.

 

Squeezy, I never took anything like hormone replacement as I felt my ME was worse when I was taking a contraceptive.

However, I have taken clonidine to help my ME for many years and women are given it to help with hot flushes so that might have made a difference.

I hope it all goes well for you

 

Maybe that explains why I have no energy and a rapidly deteriorating brain. I had my estradiol measured last year and it was so low that it was just reported as < 18 pmol/L - Range < 100 pmol/L. I got the impression they couldn't measure any more precisely than that when levels were so low.

 

at the other extreme - given one of the female spikes for incidence is puberty - does the rise in estrogen in puberty have some significance re immune function that may contribute to onset?

 

I’ve found sage supplements to be of enormous help in dealing with hot flushes, I’m reluctant to take HRT for health reasons but I was seriously considering it because the hot flushes were so sever and exhausting and as I’m already very ill they were definitely having an impact on my ME. I started taking the sage and although it took about 3 weeks to work for me, it has completely eliminated them for which I’m incredibly grateful!

it also works for night sweats generally, my daughter takes it and it’s stoped hers entirely and has also helped another friend of mine who’s post menopause but was struggling with hot flushes again years after they’d stopped. Sage is also an anti inflammatory which is interesting given the subject of this thread. Thought I’d mention it just in case it helps someone else.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if there were some hormonal connection, even if it's not straightforward or universal.

Another N=1, of course, but my ME symptoms were always twice as bad in the week before my period, and my overall function been significantly better since menopause.

 

I've had ME since the age of 29 and I can definitely tell the difference since starting meno 5 years ago (53). Reduced stamina, immune system going haywire, weakness in my hands/wrists, full stop weakness when I climb stairs, mood swings etc. I would describe the weakness and loss of stamina with meno as being quite different from ME.

 

Interesting. I'm the complete opposite!

 

This depends on the individual. In the UK at least. They are certainly cautious about oestrogen especially in women particularly at risk of certain side effects.

Progesterone only won't cut it for some ladies.

Here's a useful website for the curious -
https://www.menopausematters.co.uk

 

My periods were a nightmare from the day they started to the day they stopped, as an unexpected but very welcome 45th birthday gift.

Life used to come to a halt completely for the first two days of the cycle, as I'd faint from the pain if I tried to stand up. The build-up beforehand with a huge ME flare went on for about eight days, so basically I got to decent weeks out of every four! It might have helped if I'd been diagnosed with endometriosis at the time instead of at age 58 during a lower endoscopy (they found lots of adhesions), but I doubt treatment would have resolved it completely.

Even though I did get menopause symptoms for a few years in my late 50s, life's been a joy since! I'm able to live on a completely even keel, with the only negative effect being a noticeably worse memory. My hair's thinner, but that's no bad thing; it used to take ages to cut, style, and dry.

 

@Kitty

We share thinning hair though

 

Interesting follow up documentary on Channel 4 last night:
Davina McCall: Sex, Mind and the Menopause

write up article:
https://inews.co.uk/culture/televis...se-channel-4-documentary-time-tonight-1606670

'brain fog' being a key symptom was news to me as was
the issue of starting HRT early as a means of prevention of dementia.