Symptoms Experienced During the Menopause Transition and Cognition in Older Women With Cardiovascular Disease: Secondary Analyses of the MindMoves Trial.

This was a cross-sectional secondary analysis, so it cannot show that menopause symptoms caused later cognition or biomarker changes. Women recalled symptoms from as many as 15 to 30 years earlier, and the authors noted risk of underreporting or overreporting. No power analysis was done for this secondary analysis, and 24 regression models were run at unadjusted significance .05. The symptom measure was modified for recall and had only one sexual function item and one cognitive item embedded in the psychological dimension. Age at menopause was not included in regression models because 41 cases had missing values. HRT formulation, timing, and duration were not known. Cognitive tests were done by telephone and may be less sensitive than in-person testing. Participants were low-active, highly educated, and mostly White women with cardiovascular disease, so results may not generalize.

Do not conclude that menopause symptoms cause later memory problems or that HRT improves memory. This was a cross-sectional analysis of recalled symptoms, and the simple tests found no significant symptom-cognition associations. The adjusted findings were exploratory and the authors said they need to be interpreted with great caution.