What do we know about brain fog in menopause?
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People talk a lot about brain fog, Priya. Do you ever experience brain fog? I sometimes experience brain fog, you know, that thickness through life. I don't know.
I don't know if I'm aware enough, honestly, at the minute. I just feel like I'm constantly juggling so many balls and the kids and I do have days where it's more difficult and perhaps that is brain fog, but it's a term that I hear often from patients and it can be after a viral illness. It can be after many things, but certainly more discussion about this thickness, these cognitive symptoms during menopause and perimenopause.
It seems to be where it comes up most. And of course, that's one of the things we're going to be talking about today on The Health Report.
I'm Priya Alexander on Wurundjeri land.
And I'm Norman Swan on Gadigal land.
Also on the show, asthma in Australia is a big issue, a big burden, but we might not be managing it so well and there's a new blueprint with some clear suggestions.
And gene testing when you've got cancer, really fascinating study on children with cancer and whether you should actually look at the whole genome to see what's going on and it turns out important information and that might be relevant for adults with cancer too.
In the news though, something that I get quite excited about, there is a new vaccine, the RSV vaccine, which people might know as OREXI, which is going to be available on the National Immunisation Program from mid-May this year. So over 2 million Australians will be eligible. People aged 75 and over and First Nations Australians aged 60 and over will be eligible for this vaccine, which is normally very expensive, Norman.
It is, and we had a moan about it last week on the programme. On Saturday and on Sunday they announced it was going to be available. So, you know, if you listen on Saturday, you're now out of date. And we're out of date.
But it's normally $300. It's normally $300, very expensive. With the age groups that are funded, I think it's just worth reminding people that actually if you go to the Immunisation Handbook or ATAGI recommendations, it's still recommended, this RSV protection against this virus, which can be really quite problematic for infants and also as you get older. It's recommended for people aged over 70 and those people who are higher risk of complications, aged 50 to 59. Those groups it's not funded for. So you're still looking at potentially $300. But it's good that for some groups now it is funded because it can be really nasty illness for older people.
And also some new research on home cooking. Your favourite topic.
Yes. I did request that we cover this. This is a study out of Japan that's used data from public long-term insurance system.
What is brain fog and how does it affect women during menopause?
And what they've done is they've assessed people's cooking frequency at baseline. So they've said, how often do you cook at home? They've then followed these people for six years. They've matched them. So men and women have been matched. So people who didn't cook much, they've been matched with people who did cook a lot at home. They've looked and they've been six years. And the dementia rates are lower. So basically cooking at least once a week was associated with a 30% reduction in dementia risk. And if you're not a good cook, Norman, and I don't know if that's you or not, I don't know your cooking abilities, but you had an even greater benefit from cooking.
So really interesting study is kind of what you'd want to believe. There is a caveat in this sort of study, which is there's a long preliminary tail, if you like, or lead-in to dementia. So you can have signs of dementia many years before you actually develop dementia.
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