Hot flashes and night sweats, the discomforting symptoms often linked to menopause, can have effects beyond disrupted sleep. A latest study has found that girls who experience hot flashes during sleep are at the next risk of Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s is a progressive brain disorder that affects memory, considering and behavior. Greater than 6.5 million people within the U.S. above the age of 65 live with Alzheimer’s disease, out of which greater than 60% are women.

The increased risk in women could be on account of their longer life expectancy. One other possibility is the occurrence of decreased estrogen levels during menopause, the stage that marks the tip of a girl’s menstrual cycle. Menopausal transition most frequently begins between ages 45 and 55. During this era, women experience various symptoms similar to hot flashes, night sweats, irregular periods, sleep problems, mood changes, weight gain and hair thinning.

A previous study found that girls who underwent premature menopause (before the age of 40) have higher levels of tau, the protein buildup within the brains linked to Alzheimer’s.

A hot flash is a sudden warm feeling experienced on the upper body, engulfing the face, neck and chest, which is commonly accompanied by sweating. Rapid heartbeat and feelings of hysteria are the opposite signs of a hot flash.

“There was a convergence of findings showing that hot flashes – particularly when objectively measured and occurring during sleep – are related to poorer memory performance, in addition to greater markers of small vessel disease risk within the brain, which has been linked to future dementia. This study further adds to the literature linking hot flashes – and particularly sleep hot flashes — to markers of poorer brain health,” Dr. Rebecca Thurston, a study writer, said.

In the most recent study, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Illinois evaluated skin temperature changes in 250 middle-aged women and located an association between hot flashes and increased occurrence of white matter hyperintensities, a recently identified biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease.

The findings were presented on the annual meeting of The North American Menopause Society in Philadelphia.

The study doesn’t indicate that hot flashes cause dementia and has not examined the potential mechanism that explains the association.

“We don’t yet know the underlying mechanisms, as some most intuitive potential mechanisms similar to sleep and estradiol levels didn’t explain the associations seen here. Interestingly, these associations weren’t explained by sleep itself. There could also be something particularly vital about these nocturnal hot flashes that now we have not appreciated up thus far,” Thurston said.

Researchers hope the findings will help women who experience hot flashes to scale back other controllable risk aspects of Alzheimer’s similar to a sedentary lifestyle, poor sleep and food plan.

“Straight away, a few of the perfect ways to preserve brain health are to interact in all of those healthy behaviors we all know are vital – similar to engaging in regular exercise, eating a healthy food plan, sleeping adequately, treating any mental health conditions, and treating any risk aspects similar to hypertension and diabetes,” Thurston said.

Published by Medicaldaily.com