Benefiting at work from Brain Based Insights

It’s been bandied about for years…. Does estrogen therapy  improve memory and brain power in women during menopause? Any guess at the new response?  

It is common knowledge that while aging itself can result in a decline of some cognitive abilities, many menopausal women tell of memory difficulties and others complain of focus and concentration  problems… as well as feeling light-headed.

Unfortunately… many of the women you talk to … find the research about estrogen therapy confusing…. Do you…?  Half their doctors tell them to take estrogen while  the other half tell them to run from it…. What do you say...?  

Some studies on hormone therapy indicate that estrogen therapy can boost brain power during the menopausal transition, when some aspects of cognition, particularly verbal memory, may begin to deteriorate. Other studies, particularly the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study … WHIMS … published in 2004, find no benefit – and even some risk – associated with hormone replacement therapy.

One randomized study of 7,000 women …  WHIMS … found that estrogen does not diminish the cognitive aging process in women who begin treatment after age 65. While these sets of findings appear to be at odds with one another, taken together, they indicate that estrogen finds greatest benefit if begun during a woman's transition into menopause – which is between the ages of 45 and 55 – rather than years after menstruation ceases.  Barbara B. Sherwin, Ph.D., James McGill Professor of Psychology at McGill University in Montreal , said.” this so-called critical period hypothesis is taking hold and is supported by research that includes basic science insights, small animal studies, and primate as well as human studies.”  Does that change your mind about estrogen benefits...?