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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DISCLAIMER

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

IN THIS SUMMARIZED BOOK, YOU WILL GET:

• Chapter provides an astute outline of the main contents.
• Fast & simple understanding of the content analysis.
• Exceptionally summarized content that you may skip in the original book

Dr. Mosconi, a leading neuroscientist and women's brain health specialist, explains that menopause is a hormonal show affecting the brain, affecting body temperature, mood, and memory. She suggests using hormone replacement therapies, hormonal contraception, and lifestyle changes to overcome these challenges. She also dispels the myth that menopause signifies an end, stating that if women take care of themselves during menopause, they can emerge with a renewed, enhanced brain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Mar 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9783755472193

Book preview

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