Pluvio Coronado
professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, president of the Spanish Association for the Study of Menopause (AEEM)
This is a very interesting article, especially because it is becoming increasingly clear that the menopause is not a disease, but produces symptoms that not only worsen women's quality of life but also have deleterious effects on cognitive ability and thus increase the risk of dementia.
This study is well conducted in a large sample of Canadian women and shows that the higher the symptom burden, the more cognitive impairment is observed.
However, the study has biases, such as women remembering the symptoms they had (where there may be forgetfulness or misjudgement of symptoms). In addition, everyone scores the same on the scale, regardless of severity or intensity.
On the other hand, it is not shown whether intervention by alleviating these symptoms (and which ones would be relevant) improves impairment. It is noted that the use of hormone therapy was 25% and that this has a negative effect on impairment, so it could be a preventive factor to be studied.
The implication of the study is that menopausal symptoms should not be underestimated as, in addition to impairing quality of life and some of them being associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (such as hot flushes), they have an impact on cognitive ability. A possible ally is hormone therapy, but studies are needed to corroborate this.