Where Women Put on Fat Affects Cognitive Abilities Later in Life

The deck is really stacked against women, you know?  First of all, we go through menopause - men have NO IDEA what that is like, except for the occasional male who is killed by a female in the midst of an hormonal induced rage, or really really bad hot flash.  Then, our body starts piling on fat, even though we haven't changed our eating habits or our physical activities.  Once menopause hits, fat comes on, unless one goes on a starvation diet.  No meat.  No alcohol of any kind.  No fat.  No dairy.  No carbs.  You can eat green stuff like seaweed and all the fish you want contaminated with PCBs.  You can work out 35 hours a week with a professional trainer.  Then, and only then, may you maintain the same profile you had body-wise before menopause struck.

The fat starts to pile on to a woman's body naturally because fat produces certain chemicals that leach into our systems that imitate the effects of the missing estrogen in our bodies.  It happens automatically, and we have few to no defenses against the effects! 

Every attempt by scientists to produce a substitute for the missing estrogen in post-menopausal women has led to disaster:  women with greatly increased risk of heart attacks and/or breast cancer and/or (I think) cervical cancer.  So - we can risk dying from cancer caused by the pills we take to try and counter the effects of menopause, we can get fat naturally as our DNA has programmed and die from complications of obesity, or we can starve ourselves together on "food" I wouldn't used ground up as fertilizer and die from starvation or PCB poisoning.  Oh - I forgot option Number Four: take one of the current "weight reducing" prescription meds on the market and die from the effects of that medication.  Big pharma knows we have short memories.  Does anyone remember how many thousands of women died and/or sustained permanent heart damage (and went on to premature deaths, or may have been as good as dead) when they took the popular weight loss pill (FDA approved, no less) known as "phen/fen?"  Nice.  Where's my gun?  Oh, I forgot - I don't own one.  Guess I can't shoot myself and put myself out of my misery after all.  See - ALZHEIMERS!  I forgot I didn't own a gun!

Now, it seems, research says that fat deposited on certain areas of a post-menopausal woman's body can also lead to cognitive impairment - what they used to call senility in the not so very old days and today diagnose as dementia and Alzheimer's disease. 

Isis also sent me this article from her Ipod or Zingy Thingy or whatever the heck it's called.  It seems there is no good news left in the world when it comes to being a female:

Study: Body shape affects memory in older women

A woman's body shape may play a role in how good her memory is, according to a new study.

The more an older woman weighs, the worse her memory, according to research released this week from Northwestern Medicine at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

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So, I'm supposed to be happy that I've been non-stop battling fat around my waist since my 48th birthday because that means I may have a chance to NOT become demented in my later years? Gee.