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This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book.
Summary of The Menopause Brain by Lisa Mosconi PhD and Maria Shriver: New Science Empowers Women to Navigate the Pivotal Transition with Knowledge and Confidence
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Summary of
The Menopause Brain
A
Summary of Lisa Mosconi PhD and Maria Shriver’s book
New Science Empowers Women to Navigate the Pivotal Transition with Knowledge and Confidence
GP SUMMARY
Summary of The Menopause Brain by Lisa Mosconi PhD and Maria Shriver: New Science Empowers Women to Navigate the Pivotal Transition with Knowledge and Confidence
By GP SUMMARY© 2023, GP SUMMARY.
All rights reserved.
Author: GP SUMMARY
Contact: [email protected]
Cover, illustration: GP SUMMARY
Editing, proofreading: GP SUMMARY
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NOTE TO READERS
This is an unofficial summary & analysis of Lisa Mosconi PhD and Maria Shriver’s “The Menopause Brain: New Science Empowers Women to Navigate the Pivotal Transition with Knowledge and Confidence” designed to enrich your reading experience.
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The contents of the summary are not intended to replace the original book. It is meant as a supplement to enhance the reader's understanding. The contents within can neither be stored electronically, transferred, nor kept in a database. Neither part nor full can the document be copied, scanned, faxed, or retained without the approval from the publisher or creator.
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Copyright 2023. All rights reserved.
FOREWORD
The Menopause Brain is a valuable resource for women experiencing menopause, perimenopause, and postmenopausal life. It provides up-to-date information about the brain and body's response to menopause, including symptoms such as heart palpitations, anxiety, depression, lack of concentration, hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, and sleep disturbances. The book is crucial because every woman will go through menopause at some point in her life, and it helps guide them through these symptoms.
The author met Lisa in 2017 when she was looking for research on why women are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's as men and why women of color are at even higher risk for the disease. She was among the first scientists to show the impact of menopause on a woman's brain at midlife and discuss the brain's response to menopause in general.
Despite the prevalence of menopause symptoms and its potentially serious consequences on long-term health, research into menopause has historically been underfunded and overlooked. In 2022, WAM joined forces with Cleveland Clinic to become WAM at Cleveland Clinic, which remains the preeminent organization for women and Alzheimer's.
The focus is on continuing to support researchers like Lisa and ensure that women everywhere get the valuable information they need to take control of their health during these critical decades. The book encourages women to visit their healthcare providers with this knowledge and form a plan that will deliver the best medical care they need and deserve for lifelong health.
In conclusion, The Menopause Brain is a valuable resource for women experiencing menopause, providing up-to-date information and practical guidance.
PART 1
THE BIG M
You Are Not Crazy
Menopause, a common midlife phenomenon, is often overlooked in society due to its lack of proper education and support. It is often overlooked within families and is often overlooked in discussions about the brain's impact on menopause. Menopause impacts the brain just as much as it impacts the ovaries, but it has far-reaching effects beyond fertility.
Symptoms of menopause include heat surges, feelings of anxiety and depression, sleepless nights, clouded thoughts, and memory lapses. These neurological symptoms originate from the ways menopause changes the brain, not the ovaries. While the ovaries play a role in this process, it is the brain that is at the wheel.
The hidden scale and impact of menopause are not just unfair, but also constitute a significant public health problem with far-reaching consequences. Women make up half of the population, and all women go through menopause. By 2030, 1 billion women worldwide will have entered or will be about to enter menopause. Most women spend about 40% of their lives in menopause, and over three-quarters of all women develop brain symptoms during this period.
Menopause should be a major sociocultural event and subject of extensive investigation and deep knowledge. Instead, the current perception of what menopause means is fixated on the many pitfalls of this life event, while from a scientific and medical perspective, it is a discipline without a name.
Western medical frameworks often fail to recognize the connection between menopause and other symptoms such as anxiety, insomnia, depression, or brain fog. This is particularly true for women under fifty who are often dismissed as a byproduct of their psychology. Western medicine is known for its siloed, non-holistic frameworks, which evaluate the human body in terms of its individual components. As a result, menopause has been pigeonholed as "an issue with the ovaries" and consigned to ob-gyn territory. Many ob-gyns are not trained to diagnose or manage brain symptoms in the first place, and many ob-gyn residents are not trained to manage menopause at all.
Blood scientists, like associate professor of neuroscience in neurology and radiology at Weill Cornell Medicine, have made it their life's work to study and support women's brains. They launched the Women's Brain Initiative in 2017, a clinical research program dedicated to understanding how brain health plays out differently in women than in men. The team studies women's brains, understanding how they shift and change in response to hormones, especially during menopause.
The team has made significant progress in demonstrating that women's brains age differently from men's brains, and that menopause plays a key role in this process. Their studies have shown that menopause is a neurologically active process that impacts the brain in fairly unique ways. These changes can account for feelings of weariness, mood swings, sleep disturbances, stress, and cognitive performance. Most women can feel these changes, as marked biological changes result in actual modifications of the brain's chemistry.
The Menopause Brain is a book that provides women with the information they need to experience menopause with knowledge and confidence. It explores the impact of menopause on the brain, its structure, regional connectivity, and overall chemistry. The research shows that these changes don't occur after menopause but start before it, during perimenopause. This period is when the brain is in a state of adjustment and remodeling, like a machine that once ran on gas but is now switching to electricity.
The book is divided into four parts: "The Big M," which provides the foundational elements needed to understand menopause from a clinical perspective; "The Brain-Hormone Connection," discussing the role of hormones for brain health; "Hormonal and Nonhormonal Therapies," discussing hormone replacement therapy, anti-estrogen therapy for breast cancer and ovarian cancer, and the effects of "chemo brain."
The book also discusses gender-affirming therapy for transgender individuals, including methods to suppress estrogen production. It also discusses lifestyle and integrative health, focusing on validated lifestyle and behavioral practices designed to address menopause symptoms without prescription medications while supporting cognitive and emotional health.
The book is a love letter to womanhood and a rallying cry for all women to embrace menopause without fear or embarrassment. It is the foundation to celebrate our own signature brand of brainpower, appreciate the intelligent adaptations our bodies and brains make over a lifetime, and enjoy our journey to optimal lifelong health. The information contained in this book aims to spur many discussions about the multifaceted topic of menopause and to reinvigorate the voice of the "forgotten gender"—individually and as half the world.
Busting the Bias Against Women and Menopause
This book discusses the complex and demeaning stereotypes surrounding menopause, rooted in the cultural and clinical perspectives of women. The notion of female inferiority is a fundamental part of modern science, with Charles Darwin's theory that men attain higher eminence than women due to their larger bodies and brains being interpreted as a sign of mental inferiority. This belief was used to justify the difference in social status between men and women, denying women access to higher education or other rights.
However, the brain-weight intelligence theory was fully debunked in the early twentieth century, and the later advent of brain imaging further dispelled many of the base assumptions behind neurosexism. Today, many argue that neuro-sexism is still alive and kicking, as women's brains do differ from men's. Disparities between genders are too seldom used to modernize medical care and far too often used to reinforce demeaning gender stereotypes.
From birth, society sends the message that women are lesser as women, if for no other reason than the fact that men are bigger and stronger. These beliefs proliferate in various aspects of life, culminating in middle age. Menopause is seen as the final blow, reduced to evidence of weakness and disease. The loss of utility in bearing children is an additional unwelcome cultural tax, fueling the fire of inferiority, physically, mentally, personally, and even professionally.
In popular culture, menopausal women are often portrayed through erratic moods and explosive rages, deeply rooted in centuries of patriarchal mistrust of female bodies. By addressing the complex and demeaning stereotypes surrounding menopause, we can work towards a more balanced and equitable understanding of the topic.
