- Researchers report that “hot flashes” during sleep are associated with biomarkers for increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
- In their study, researchers noted that sleep itself was not found to elevate risk.
- They say the study is a caution to women who experience sleep hot flashes to reduce their controllable risk factors for developing Alzheimer’s.
Menopausal women who experience frequent hot flashes during sleep may be at elevated risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
In a new study, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Illinois also report that the more hot flashes a woman has, the higher the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
The research is being presented at the annual meeting of The North American Menopause Society in Philadelphia. It hasn’t been published yet in a peer-reviewed journal.
Women are at higher risk of Alzheimer’s than men. Two-thirds of people with the degenerative neurological disease are female.
Decreased estrogen levels after menopause is one suspected reason, although the cause of Alzheimer’s disease remains unknown.
Hot flashes have been
“There has been a convergence of findings showing that hot flashes – particularly when objectively measured and occurring during sleep – are associated with poorer memory performance as well as greater markers of small vessel disease risk in the brain, which has been linked to future dementia,” Dr. Rebecca Thurston, a study author and director of women’s bio-behavioral health at the University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry, told Medical News Today. “This study further adds to that literature linking hot flashes – and particularly sleep hot flashes — to markers of poorer brain health.”
The research is the first study to establish a link between hot flashes and recently identified biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers tracked…
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