Most women are willing to consider menopause as their gateway to the wise years.

        But it's hard to feel wise when memory loss — also known as “menofog” or fuzzy thinking — makes you forget where you left your keys, car, purse or office, or why you need any of those things.

        Mary Gilbert, 49, tells friends that 10 years ago, “I had total recall. I knew everything.” Her current bouts with what she calls “fuzzy brain syndrome” are embarrassing and frustrating, she says.

MANAGING MENOFOG

Memory loss during menopause can be frustrating and downright terrifying. Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of The Wisdom of Menopause (Bantam; $27.95), reminds women approaching their wise years that fuzzy thinking probably isn't Alzheimer's or dementia, and it can be managed. Here are her suggestions for protecting brain function:    • Feed your brain well. Refined sugar and partially hydrogenated fats deplete nutrients that keep your brain working efficiently. Choose a low-fat, low-sugar diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Get plenty of zinc, B vitamins, selenium and vitamins C and E.    • Stop smoking and avoid excessive alcohol use. Cigarettes decrease oxygen to the brain, and alcohol impairs the area of the brain associated with memory.    • Try pregnenolone, progesterone and DHEA, related hormones that act as neurotransmitters in the brain. Pregnenolone, available over the counter, seems to be better-tolerated by women than DHEA. But if you have a history of epilepsy, avoid these substances.    • Get your fats straight. Choose small amounts of fats from olive oil, sesame oil, fatty fish like salmon, mackerel and sardines or DHA made from algae.    • Eat soy. People who eat lots of soy (like the Japanese) have lower rates of dementia. Soy phytoestrogens are also promising in protecting brain power.    • Go herbal. Ginkgo biloba and gotu kola seem to increase blood flow to the brain.    • Manage the other symptoms. Stop the hot flashes and get some sleep, and that fuzzy thinking could clear right up: Consider prescription hormone replacement therapy (estrogen and progesterone supplements) or plant-based estrogen supplements. Talk to your doctor about the benefits and risks of HRT.    • More herbs. Dong quai, chaste berry, black cohosh and licorice root are commonly used to ease a variety of symptoms, including hot flashes, vaginal dryness, depression, excessive uterine bleeding and irregular menstruation.

        There's little information on what precisely causes menofog, but there are plenty of remedies out there to help clear up fuzzy thinking and the other symptoms that accompany the change.

        The memory lapses that occur during menopause don't happen in isolation, says Dr. James Liu, a reproductive endocrinologist at the University of Cincinnati. “They usually occur with symptoms of hot flashes and sleep disturbances,” Dr. Liu says.

        Perimenopause and menopause are complex transitions. A woman's body slows production of the hormones estrogen and progesterone and the ovaries stop producing eggs. Menstrual activity slows and eventually stops.

        During the hormonal upheaval, women experience a number of physical and emotional symptoms, including hot flashes, night sweats, sleeplessness, forgetfulness, flushing and mood swings. Loss of estrogen also leads to loss of bone density, making osteoporosis and osteopena real risks for post-menopausal women.

        Lois Shegog, 50, of North Avondale, knows all too well the annoyance of walking into a room only to forget why she went in there in the first place.

        Ms. Shegog, who was 29 when she began menopause after a hysterectomy, is finished with the symptoms and happy with the wisdom. But that wasn't always the case.

        “At first it was scary. There are times when you think that you are losing your mind, basically, and you don't quite have it together like you did when you were 25 or younger, where you could remember everything in your schedule and you had everything under control,” she says. “You need a little help. You have to write things down.”

        There's no good science on why menofog occurs, Dr. Liu says.

        “It's not clear if it's a combination of lack of sleep as well as an increased intolerance to environmental stresses,” he says. There may be other mechanisms at work as well.

        Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can alleviate many of the symptoms of menopause, including fuzzy thinking, and also protect against heart disease. But some women are at greater risk for some types of breast cancer if they choose HRT, so estrogen supplements, whether synthetic or natural, aren't without risk.

        Ms. Shegog used traditional hormone replacement therapy. Mrs. Gilbert, who lives in Mount Washington, takes Estroven, a plant-based estrogen supplement that includes herbal ingredients.

        Doctors don't know what causes fuzzy thinking, and they don't know why estrogen seems to help. It's possible that by alleviating the hot flashes and sleep problems, menofog goes away as well, Dr. Liu says.

        Estrogen was studied as a possible remedy for the memory loss and dementia that occur with Alzheimer's disease. There was no evidence that it had it had any effect on patients' memories, Dr. Liu says.

        “Of course, that was relatively late in the game. Obviously one can't say the estrogen didn't work because it was ineffective. It may just be that the Alzheimer's was so progressed that it didn't reverse with an estrogen compound.”

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