Almost half of dementia cases are preventable, according the brand-new 2024 update to the standing Lancet Commission on dementia prevention.
First up: the thing you don’t see on there is ‘menopause’ or ‘estrogen deficiency’, no matter how many people are gunning for it to be that way.
The commission has officially added high cholesterol and vision loss to their list of modifiable risk factors, bringing the number to 14. (I was just being lazy about getting my glasses and squinting at something the other day and I actually wondered – knowing that hearing is related – ‘could this be increasing my dementia chances’?)
There is an argument to be made that the ‘50 percent preventable’ figure could be much higher if all the over-the-counter and prescribed medications that are associated with cognitive decline were to be factored in. However, this is a mainstream medicine commission and we can’t expect them to start criticizing the medication their members so frequently prescribe.
The mainstream medical treatment for high cholesterol is statins, while at the same time there are emerging and divergent approaches to high cholesterol, and whether statins are always the right choice, or more risk than reward. It’s all a thorny and confusing issue if there ever was one. (This is a good intro to that can of worms.)
A cynical person might also point out that having high cholesterol included on a list like this will probably be pretty good for the business of statin prescriptions, but of course we have no way of knowing if there was any lobbying behind the scenes on that or any other front.
It’s all enough to make your head spin if you ask too many questions, which could just be an unofficial modifiable risk factor for dementia too.
My point is, we do what we can, with what we have. And this is a pretty good list.
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Alert: Postmenopausal bleeding
The Menopause Society of North America issued a press release this week about something that should never be ignored: postmenopausal bleeding. Any bleeding beyond one year of no bleeding (the internationally recognized marker for menopause) can be a sign of endometrial cancer and should never be ignored. In a new study, the society reports that one-third of 650 participants, 145 of whom were postmenopausal, did not recognize postmenopausal bleeding as a key symptom. Almost half of the women in the study didn’t understand that menopause = not having had a period for 1 year or more.
The society also reported that cases of this kind of cancer are rising – two percent per year, across almost all races and ethnic groups – as are deaths, at a rate of approximately 1.1 percent per year between 1999 and 2016.
Hot tip: Understanding hair loss
In past interviews with Dubai-based trichologist Dr Mike Ryan, he told me something I’ve never forgotten: hair loss is often the result of stress or trauma, and that can take many forms. Our hair (and nails) are not essential, so if the body is busy dealing with something else, a virus or a physical trauma or extreme stress, it shuts off their energy supply. This only shows up months later, when you’ve moved on and can’t make the connection. Even something as simple as slamming your finger in a door could do it. A virus like Covid did it – he had people with boxes of hair turning up at his office, months after. So if a finger in a door and Covid can do it, then the hormonal fluctuations of perimenopause can too, right? This is not true for all hair loss, of course. But it is true for some of it. Dr Ryan advises getting checked out by a doctor if you are experiencing any kind of hair loss, to rule out whether anything else is going on.
Menopause, work and the law
Three legal powerhouses in the US have teamed up to write the book we all need. In October, Stanford University Press will publish Hot Flash: How the Law Ignores Menopause and What We Can Do About It. The coauthors – legal professors Emily Gold Waldman, Bridget J. Crawford, and Naomi R. Cahn – describe write about how menopause is just one more area of women’s health where we need a deeper understanding to end legal and cultural silence. They make the case for a new wave of intersectional feminism, supported by law focused on equity and bodily autonomy.
Quote of the week:
“I’ve been describing them as estrogen extremists.”
@mcolours reply to my post about all the doctors who only think we have one female hormone
Shop, shop and shop some more
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Click, watch, read, listen + learn
What a magnificent piece of advertising, and when you’ve grown up hiding all things ladyblood (as many of us did), it never ceases to be liberating seeing that all be unravelled so starkly: The director of the Netflix show Eric, Lucy Forbes teamed up with a creative team at AMV BBDO to create a barrier-breaking masterpiece for Bodyform, the Essity-owned U.K. feminine protection brand: Never Just a Period
I normally avoid the word “debunking” like the plague, but this is a pretty good primer on menopause from two professors of ob-gyn at UT Southwestern in the US. It’s also a good example of how mainstream medicine manages to dumb it all down to estrogen, almost every time.
I think Kamala Harris can talk about menopause when she’s ready, but an article like this in The Daily Beast is a sign of the times: It’s Time for Kamala Harris to talk about menopause
“We’re noticing changes in men earlier than in women,” Dr. Aamer Khan, MB ChB, co-founder of Harley Street Skin Clinic tells Loaded. It’s never popular to mention that men struggle hormonally too. But they do.
It’s behind a paywall, but the African paper Daily Nation is clocking a common issue that we rarely connect to our hormones. An unexpected menopause symptom: Driving anxiety.
Menopause is prematurely ending women’s careers, writes Tracey Collins in YourTango
Well this is something I wasn’t worried about before: Menopause increases your risk of STIs (due to an age-related loss of integrity in the vaginal lining"), according to an infectious disease specialist writing in The Conversation
3 things I’m doing
Changing scenery: I’m at the 25 Hours Hotel in Dubai (I live in Abu Dhabi) this weekend, and it is filled with two of my favorite things – plants and books – and many other delights. Including a bathtub, which I don’t have in my apartment.
Breathing: I’m also going to a 9D Breathwork class, one of my new passions, and the theme is abundance, another thing I’ve been working on. 9D is like meditation, hypnosis, a drug-free psychedelic trip, a support group and breathwork all rolled into one.
Reading: I just finished Kate Codrington’s book Second Spring. I love it and I needed it, and I’m going to have a lot more to say about it. She’s coming out with a companion workbook too. And I just started The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman, all about AI. Cause it can’t be all about menopause, all the time.
»» SOCIAL»» Follow me on IG and see me having a major menopause moment finding my train of thought in a podcast interview. Fun fact: in my podcast intro you can hear California-based urologist/uro-gynecologist Dr Karyn Eilber saying “Hotflash inc!” laughing, and that was the joke she made when I had a similar moment during our interview. It happens.