St. Patricks Day green foods and menopause brain

Happy Pi Day! If you don’t celebrate this math holiday, we’ve got the pie recipes to get you started. And if you’re celebrating St. Patrick’s Day this weekend, we’ve got some healthy “green” tips below. (Your microbiome will thank you.) Keep reading for more news about the menopause brain, alternatives to colonoscopy screening and our weekly “joy” snacks. But before that …

This week’s must-reads:

Turf fields may have ‘forever chemicals.’ Should kids be playing on them?
Why a too-tight sports bra may affect your breathing and energy
Are natural sweeteners like honey and agave really better for you?
Should I use diaper cream on my face? Here’s why some people are.
Not everyone needs therapy

Eating green for St. Patrick’s Day

Scientists have found that the more diverse your diet, the more diverse your gut microbiome. Studies show that a high level of microbiome diversity correlates with good health and that low diversity is linked to higher rates of weight gain and obesity, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic diseases.

Even if you already eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, try increasing the variety of plant foods you eat each week. One fast way to do this is to eat different green foods. Use more herbs and spices. Make a salad using an assortment of leafy greens rather than one type of lettuce. Add several different vegetables to your stir fry and eat more nuts, seeds, beans and grains.

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, try making some of these green meals from our Food team. You can always find fresh ideas for dinner and special celebrations through our Recipes link. What do you want to cook today?

Winter Salad With Crunchy Greens and Sardines

Crispy Parmesan Smashed Broccoli

Green Beans With Oranges and Almonds

Zero Proof Basil-Matcha Fizz

The menopause brain

“Menopause is a function of the brain that plays havoc with a woman’s body and her outlook on life,” Maria Shriver writes in the forward to the new book “The Menopause Brain.” “Indeed, all of these erratic emotions and symptoms can make a woman feel crazy if she is not reassured that they are normal.”

This week on Washington Post Live, I spoke with the book’s author, Lisa Mosconi, a neuroscientist. Here’s an edited excerpt of our conversation. You can watch and listen to the full discussion by clicking the link below.

Why has it been such a challenge, not just for women but also for the medical community, to recognize that menopause is normal and that women are not crazy?

It really goes back to Darwin, the father of modern biology, who was the first one to weigh in on menopause and really characterized this phase of life as something that nature had not intended. Darwin was the person who said that women’s brains were inherently inferior to men’s brains. There is quite a strong neurosexism in research, where a lot of the research that was done in the past really aimed at proving Darwin right.

The studies were built in such a way where scientists were testing the hypothesis that men’s brains were actually better than women’s brains. That led to something called “bikini medicine,” which is an interesting term describing how, from a medical perspective, still today, what makes a woman a woman are those parts of the body that can fit under the bikini line.

I think it’s also a combination of ageism and sexism and a little bit of a cultural attitude toward menopause that really leads us to focus on the downsides and not look at menopause as something that is actually helpful to women, at least from an evolutionary perspective.

You have slides of a woman’s brain before and after menopause, and the changes are startling. Can you explain?

This is the very first study that we did looking at the brain before and after menopause. We show a brain scan of a woman who was 43 years old when she came in for the first time. And we also got a picture of her brain right after the transition to menopause, just about eight years later. Quantitatively, that’s about a 30 percent reduction in brain energy levels.

A 30 percent change is obvious on the brain scans, but it’s not a sign of a deficiency or a neurodegenerative process. This is a sign of menopause. It’s something that happens to many women’s brains in our studies, at least. We are basically validating what countless women have been saying for centuries, which is that menopause changes your brain. Many women can feel these changes in their brain energy levels, their biochemistry.

You call this book “a love letter to womanhood and a rallying cry for all women to embrace menopause without fear or embarrassment.” What do you want women to take away from your book and from this research?

My message is that menopause is a neurologically active state. It impacts your brain. It’s important to know this because it really empowers all women to stand up for themselves and not worry that they’re losing their minds or that they’re getting dementia. This is menopause. There are many solutions available to address the symptoms while also embracing the fact that there is a biological reason for the brain to go through menopause, for your body to go through menopause, and that it’s not the end in any way, shape or form.

So many women after menopause are still exceptionally productive, right? We may not be reproductive, but there’s no reason to not be productive. And the average person spends — the average woman will spend over 30 percent of her life in a postmenopausal stage. So why not make the best of it?

You can see the brain images of menopause and listen to the full conversation, by clicking this link.

And more on menopause: New research suggests certain species of whales undergo menopause to help their offspring and grand offspring.

What are alternatives to a colonoscopy?

My doctor always encourages me to do a colonoscopy for colorectal cancer screening. But I have friends who just do a stool test at home, which seems easier. Why should I go through the hassle of a colonoscopy?

My maxim is that any cancer screening is better than no cancer screening. Colorectal cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death in the United States, and cases are occurring with increasing frequency among younger people. It scares me that 28 percent of U.S. adults are not up to date with screening. If stool tests help close that gap, I’m all in.

Modern kits that test your stool for abnormal DNA and microscopic quantities of blood can detect around 92 percent of colorectal cancers. Completing a stool test is a very streamlined process, which you can do entirely at home.

For more information on stool kit options, how to use them and the benefits of colon cancer screening, read the full article from our Ask a Doctor columnist Trisha Pasricha.

Find your joy snack!

Here are a few things that brought us joy this week.

Goats were stuck in traffic. Dozens of strangers helped milk them.
Six ways to get more joy with your dog
I have little time left. I hope my goodbye inspires you.
Where darkness will fall during the total solar eclipse
Enjoy some of this week’s best photographs from The Washington Post. They include festivals, a quinceañera and a contest-winning Australian shepherd.
Cats aren’t jerks. They’re just misunderstood.

Want to know more about “joy” snacks? Our Brain Matters columnist Richard Sima explains. You can also read this story as a comic.

Please let us know how we are doing. Email me at wellbeing@washpost.com. You can also find us on TikTok.