Vasomotor disorders (the hot flashes and the night sweats) are undoubtedly the most common disorders during menopause. But their intensity varies considerably from one woman to another. The luckiest only suffer from it two to three times a week, while others feel these unpredictable and irrepressible heat waves ten times during the day and night.
Why do these “sweats” appear?
As we age, the ovaries respond less well to messages from the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. These then intensify the orders to make them secrete hormones. But, its efforts remaining more and more ineffective, the hypothalamic center begins to function in an anarchic manner. However, in this same region is also the center of thermoregulation, the one which maintains the body temperature at 37°C. As the control center for ovarian function is out of adjustment, this causes turbulence in the thermoregulation center, which sometimes decides, out of turn, to trigger a few puffs.
A new link with Alzheimer’s disease
As if hot flashes alone weren’t debilitating enough, a new study ppresented at the 2023 Menopause Society Annual Meeting currently being held in Philadelphia, suggests that, when occurring during sleep, night sweats may be early indicators of increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. And the more women suffer from these nocturnal hot flashes, the higher the risk.
Previous studies have linked one of the most common symptoms of menopause to poor memory performance. For this new study, involving 250 women, scientists from the University of Pittsburgh sought to determine whether hot flashes were associated with blood biomarker profiles associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
After analyzing the results, they concluded that hot flashes experienced during sleep could be a marker of future dementia risk.
Source :Hot Flashes Yet Another Early Indicator for Alzheimer’s Diseasethe Menopause society, September 2023
