Don't mind your hot flashes...

...they may be good for your mind. A new theory suggests that these pesky little episodes may protect your brain through a phase when dwindling estrogen supplies leave central neurons susceptible to damage. As you read on, please remember that this is all strictly a theory.

Because our brains are unable to store nutrients, we rely on a steady supply of sugar delivered via the blood to keep our central nervous system ticking. One of estrogen's many useful functions is to promote the entrance of glucose into the brain--after all, can't have Cave Mom keeling over from low brain sugar! As estrogen levels drop during perimenopause, a condition called 'neuroglucopenia' follows which is a fancy name for a brain-fogging lack of readily available glucose.

Researchers theorize that low brain sugar may set off a hot flash which activates part of our involuntary nervous system, the same reaction involved in a 'fight or flight' response to danger. This may be why hot flashes tend to rip us out of a deep early a.m. sleep, hours after our last meal. The alpha-adrenergic surge that follows corrects the starving brain problem thus protecting vulnerable cells from the destructive effects of no sugar.

Perhaps then the women most at risk for losing brain cells to aging and oxidation in an Alzheimer's sort of way are those who 'sail' through menopause without hot flashes. Neuroglucopenia city in their heads, but no adrenal surges to correct the situation.

Or maybe not.

Hot flashes and verbal memory

Interesting research from the University of Illinois in an upcoming issue of Menopause. Investigators there observed 29 hot, flashy women and determined that: 1) Women have more hot flashes than they think they do, and 2) The more hot flashes you have, the more addled your brain in a 'find the right word at the right time and use it in the right way' sort of way.

These long-suffering women agreed to wear skin conductance monitors that recorded when they broke out in a menopausal sort of sweat (do you think they got paid or did they just take one for the team?). The number of objective flashes averaged 19.5 per day per woman, but the number they reported was less than 40% of the actual episodes. Let's see, that means they perceived less than 11.7 flashes in 24 hours. I'd like to say I did that in my head, but mental arithmetic makes me sweat these days.

Then the group was invited down to the [hopefully] air-conditioned lab to perform verbal memory tests. The higher the flashes, the lower their scores. Wow, no surprise there. Dr. Pauline Maki sums it up for those of us too hot to put it in our own words: "In other words, the hot flash-memory relationship is not all in a woman's head. It's actually a physiological relationship that you can pick up on, if you measure hot flashes objectively with a monitor."

The researchers also found a relationship between hours slept, or rather hours tossed and turned, and defects in verbal memory. Certainly flashing by moonlight does not enhance sleep quality, but the Illinois doctors did not address whether it was the night sweats or night frets that caused the memory lapse.