AAN: Surgical Menopause Tied to Brain Deficits (cognitive decline)

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Action Points

• This study was published as an abstract and presented at a (Neurology) conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
• Note that this analysis of two cohort studies suggested that surgical, but not natural menopause was associated with cognitive decline in women.
• Be aware that increasing duration of hormone therapy was associated with a slower rate of cognitive decline in the surgical menopause group.

........"Our findings support a growing literature on the impact of surgical menopause on cognitive decline function, and add granularity to these outcome measures," Bove said, adding that future studies should include an ongoing look at modifying factors, such as HRT.
Bove also noted that their study was limited by patients who did not have dementia at baseline, which may represent an exclusion bias. Additional limitations included cognitive outcomes that were weighted towards memory; self-reporting by participants, retrospective, limited reproductive histories; and unlisted covariates, such as body mass index.

The study was funded by the NIH.
Some study authors reported relationships (consulting, speakers' fees, financial support) with AVID Radiopharmaceuticals, Eli Lilly, Danone, Dr. Wilmar Schwabe GmbH KG Pharmaceuticals, Eli Lilly, Merck Serono, Teva Neuroscience, and Biogen Idec.