did forgetfulness go from 31% to 44% to 41% across menopause in a study of 16,000 women?
“in one study of 16,000 women, forgetfulness complaints rose from 31%, before menopause, to 44%, in early, perimenopause, then stayed at 41%, after perimenopause.”
a host said on Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast, 2026-10-24, at 47:49. hear it in context → the speaker cited: one study of 16,000 women.
the episode: Perimenopause and Mental Health: Depression, Anxiety, Brain Fog, Sleep, and Hormone Therapy (at 47:49). we link the show's own page; we do not re-host audio.
first, the part that holds
the study is real: the 1995–97 baseline survey of the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN) enrolled 16,065 women aged 40–55. the 31% premenopausal and 44% perimenopausal forgetfulness figures match published reviews of that survey, and so does the main point that forgetfulness complaints are more common in perimenopause than before it.
what we found when we went and looked
the source is a 2000 american journal of epidemiology paper from the SWAN baseline survey of 16,065 women. we read its abstract, but its symptom table is behind a paywall, so we checked the stage-by-stage numbers against three peer-reviewed reviews written by SWAN-linked researchers. all of them put premenopausal forgetfulness at 31%. one gives 44% for perimenopause, early and late combined. but neither review that gives stage percentages puts the after-menopause figure at 41%: one says 42% for women past natural menopause and the other says 44%. one of them lists 41% as the perimenopause figure. the forgetfulness numbers also come from an analytic sample of 12,425 women, not the full 16,065, and they are a one-time snapshot of different women at different stages, not a rise tracked in the same women.
assertion by assertion
| assertion | verdict | what the record says |
|---|---|---|
| the figures come from one study of about 16,000 women | misattributed | the SWAN baseline survey had 16,065 women (journal abstract), but two reviews say the forgetfulness percentages came from an analytic sample of 12,425 women aged 40–55. the study size is right, but it is not the denominator behind these percentages. [1][3] |
| 31% of premenopausal women reported forgetfulness | confirmed | two reviews give 31% for premenopausal women. these are unadjusted, cross-sectional figures. we could not read the original table. [1][2] |
| 44% of women in early perimenopause reported forgetfulness | confirmed | one review gives 44% for 'early or late perimenopausal' women together. another gives 41% for perimenopause. a third review gives adjusted odds 44% higher in early perimenopause than premenopause, but that is an odds ratio, not a prevalence. 44% is supported, though the reviews disagree on how the stages were grouped. [1][2][3] |
| 41% of women after perimenopause (postmenopause) reported forgetfulness | misattributed | neither review that gives stage percentages says 41% for postmenopause. one says 42% for women past natural menopause, the other says 44% for postmenopausal women, and that second review uses 41% for perimenopause. the main idea, that complaints stay higher than premenopause, holds: adjusted odds were still 27% higher after menopause. the 41% looks attached to the wrong stage. moderate confidence, because the primary table was paywalled. [1][2][3] |
| forgetfulness complaints 'rose' and then 'stayed' as women went through the transition | misattributed | the 2000 data are a single cross-sectional survey comparing different women at different stages, not the same women followed over time. 'rose' and 'stayed' describe within-person change the survey could not measure. one review notes that after adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, education, economic hardship, sleep, anxiety and depression, perimenopausal women were 1.4 times as likely as premenopausal women to report forgetfulness. [1] |
both directions
for the speaker: the SWAN baseline survey had 16,065 women and examined menopausal and other symptoms by menopausal status. reviews of it agree that 31% of premenopausal women reported forgetfulness, and one gives 44% for perimenopausal women. the link to perimenopause held after adjustment: perimenopausal women were 1.4 times as likely to report forgetfulness, even accounting for sleep, anxiety and depression. postmenopausal women also stayed above the premenopausal level: one review gives 42–44% unadjusted, and another gives adjusted odds 27% higher than premenopause. so the overall shape the speaker describes, a jump in perimenopause that does not fall back to baseline, is supported.
against: the 41% 'after perimenopause' figure does not match the reviews we read: they give 42% for natural menopause and 44% for postmenopause, and one uses 41% for perimenopause. the stage percentages come from 12,425 analyzed women, not 16,000. the reviews also disagree on whether 44% belongs to early perimenopause alone or to early and late combined, so the clean 31 → 44 → 41 sequence is more precise than the published record supports. and because the data are cross-sectional, they show differences between groups of women, not a rise in the same women.
what this cannot say
we could not read the original 2000 paper's symptom table. the journal page showed only the abstract, and pubmed would not load for us. so the stage-by-stage percentages rest on peer-reviewed reviews that cite it, and those reviews disagree with each other. it is possible the original table has 41% for one category, such as late perimenopause or surgical menopause, and the speaker took it from there. forgetfulness was a single self-reported yes/no item, not a test of memory, and later SWAN cognitive testing measures something different. the data cannot say whether any one woman's memory changed.
sources, each one fetched and read
- SWAN-affiliated authors, 'Perimenopause and cognition,' Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinics of North America, 2011 (PMC3185244) What we read there: 'in this sample of 12,425 women aged 40–55 years, unadjusted for sociodemographic factors, 31% of premenopausal, 44% of early or late perimenopausal and 42% of naturally menopausal women endorsed forgetfulness.' after adjustment, 'perimenopausal women were 1.4 times more likely to report forgetfulness than were premenopausal women.' Fetched 2026-10-24 (HTTP 200). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3185244/
- 'Objective cognitive performance is related to subjective memory complaints in midlife women with moderate to severe vasomotor symptoms,' Menopause, 2013;20(12) (PMC3762921) What we read there: SWAN 'revealed a significant difference in the frequency of complaints of forgetfulness when comparing the premenopausal stage (31%) to the perimenopausal (41%) and postmenopausal (44%) stages.' Fetched 2026-10-24 (HTTP 200). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3762921/
- 'Menopause and brain health: hormonal changes are only part of the story,' Frontiers in Neurology, 2020, doi:10.3389/fneur.2020.562275 What we read there: 'among 12,425 healthy women 40–55 years of age in a baseline study of the SWAN, 39% of women complained of forgetfulness... compared to the premenopause, the odds of forgetfulness increased by 44% in the early perimenopause, 43% in the late perimenopause, 27% in the postmenopause, and 27% odds in surgical menopause.' Fetched 2026-10-24 (HTTP 200). https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2020.562275/full
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