cover image Menopause and the Mind: The Complete Guide to Coping with the Cognitive Effects of Perimenopause and Menopause Including: +Memory Loss + Foggy

Menopause and the Mind: The Complete Guide to Coping with the Cognitive Effects of Perimenopause and Menopause Including: +Memory Loss + Foggy

Claire Warga. Free Press, $24 (388pp) ISBN 978-0-684-85456-4

The author of the much-discussed 1997 New York magazine article ""Estrogen and the Brain"" aims to bring public and professional attention to a decade of new research on the link between hormonal change and lapses in the cognitive faculties of women in the years leading up to and during menopause. Citing studies that relate declining estrogen levels to a range of ""slips"" in memory, speech, thinking, attention span and sense of time and space, Warga makes a fascinating argument for the biological, even evolutionary basis of such behaviors--in men as well as women. An advocate of hormone replacement therapy to reverse these symptoms, Warga, a Ph.D. in neuropsychology, is highly skilled at making science accessible to the general reader. The book's emphasis, however, is on identifying and establishing a medical syndrome the author calls WHMS, for Warga's Hormonal Misconnection Syndrome, that she contends is separate from the physical symptoms associated with menopause. Readers, especially women from 35 to 60, who have experienced frustrating and sometimes frightening ""senior moments"" may welcome the book, but they should understand that less than a quarter of it deals with treatment and coping strategies. For those unable or unwilling to take synthetic hormones, there are helpful suggestions about estrogen ""mimics,"" including serotonin boosters, exercise and a dietary regimen that includes moderate amounts of sugar and caffeine. (Apr.)