Severe symptoms of menopause could be an early warning for the risk of dementia.

The results come from an ongoing cross-sectional study about Canadian brains and aging.

Dr. Zahinoor Ismail from the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, says about 800 women who were post menopausal were asked about the severity of their symptoms during menopause and how they are doing now.

“And the reason I focus on the neuropsychiatric and cognitive symptoms is because when those emerge and persist in midlife and later, they are risk factors for dementia,” Dr. Ismail explained.

Interestingly, Dr. Ismail says it appears that the women who were given an estrogen supplement during menopause have less severe symptoms of mental decline now.

“What we found is, if they took an estrogen based treatment back then during menopause, they had fewer neuropsychiatric symptoms now compared with those who didn’t take estrogen based treatment,” Dr. Ismail said.

The plan is for the study to be updated annually.