The Basic of Menopause and How to Diagnose It

Menopause is defined as the absence of menses for one year and most American women enter menopause at 51.4 years of age. Menopause is caused by the rather abrupt withdrawal from a woman's system of the very potent estrogen estradiol, as ovarian function ceases. There are many bothersome symptoms that herald the withdrawal of estrogen, including hot flashes, mood disturbance, weight gain, night sweats, fatigue, and sleep dis­turbance. These are not simply annoying symptoms, nor are they peripheral effects of hormone loss; they are warning signals that brain function is dis­turbed by the absence of estrogen. Sleep is regulated by the brain, and in the absence of estrogen a woman in menopause may have her sleep disturbed every fifteen seconds to eighteen minutes. The hypothalamus reacts to a lack of estrogen by causing engorgement or dilation of blood vessels, which re­sults in hot flashes.

Evidence is mounting that lack of estrogen is bad for the brain. This dis­covery began with rat studies. Rats that have their ovaries removed have a huge estrogen deficit just like menopausal women. Estrogen-deficit rats have trouble learning, and they have deterioration of their temporal lobes, the area of the brain that is responsible for learning and memory. When rats were given estrogen replacement, the number of connections between cells in their temporal lobes improved, and so did their ability to learn new tasks. There have since been many studies showing the same pattern in human fe­males. Women who have undergone surgical removal of their ovaries or who have gone through natural menopause often have difficulty with mem­ory, concentration, and attention span. They have more trouble learning skills, they have more word-finding difficulty, and they feel overwhelmed by complex tasks that were previously easily mastered. These same women have marked and rapid reversal of these symptoms with estrogen replacement.

SPECT and PET scans of postmenopausal women who have not taken estrogen replacement show deactivation of the prefrontal cortex and tem­poral lobes. Neuropsychological testing of these women indicates impaired cognitive functioning in the areas of attention span, concentration, and learning. When these women are treated with estrogen replacement therapy or Evista, a selective estrogen receptor modulator, their performance on testing markedly improved. Of great interest, the SPECT and PET scans of the treated women also showed greatly improved brain function.



If You Want Immediate Anxiety Relief, Check Out Our New Natural Technique To Stop Panic Attacks and General Anxiety Fast!