HHS HealthBeat (July 29, 2008)

Forget hot flashes?

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

The hot flashes come and the memory goes. What’s going on here?

Researchers think they’re connected. They checked by having women with moderate to severe hot flashes wear monitors that recorded when women had one. The women also took memory tests.

Pauline Maki at the University of Illinois at Chicago says that, the more hot flashes a woman had, the worse her memory was.

Other studies didn’t find that relation. But Maki says in those studies women reported their hot flashes. The monitor detects the many hot flashes women don’t report.

``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.’’ (11 seconds)

The study in the journal Menopause was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: July, 29 2008