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Entering menopause before age 40 is linked to a 35% higher risk of developing dementia later in life, a preliminary study finds. Premature menopause, as it is called, occurs when a woman's ovaries stop creating hormones and the menstrual cycle ends by age 40. That's about a dozen years earlier than the typical onset of menopause, which is age 52 in the United States, according to the US Department of Health and Human Service's Office on Women's Health. "What we see in this study is a modest association between premature menopause and a subsequent risk for dementia," said Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, president of the American Heart Association. He was not involved in the study. (LaMotte, 3/1)

The brains of older adults ― ages 60 to 85 — are full of so many facts, dates and so much other data. All of this knowledge translates into a lifetime’s worth of wisdom, but according to researchers, it may also be impacting memory. A study published in the March issue of Trends in Cognitive Science found that older adults are storing too much information in their brain, leading their memory to become “cluttered,” making certain types of information harder to retrieve. According to the study, older adults experience more difficulty recalling detailed information compared to younger adults. Important new information becomes knotted up with facts that are no longer relevant, leading to a jumbled storehouse of memories. (Ward, 2/28)

People who were obese, smoked daily or had a psychological disorder diagnosis during their adolescence years could age faster than their peers, according to researchers. In a study published at the end of last month in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, a group of international authors analyzed data from 910 participants of the New Zealand Dunedin study. The study tracked the health and behavior of residents of Dunedin, New Zealand who were born between April 1972 and March 1973, following the individuals from ages 3 to 45. The assessment later in life found at least one adolescent health condition and an outcome measure, including the pace of aging, gait speed, brain age and facial age. (Musto, 3/1)

A recall of powdered baby formula from Abbott Laboratories is highlighting the danger of Cronobacter sakazakii, a bacterium that causes that causes rare but serious infections in infants. ... Cronobacter is found naturally in the environment and can live in dry foods, including powdered formulas, powdered milk and starches, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can affect people of all ages, but it is especially dangerous in infants. (Burke, 3/2)

"Advertisements will make me buy infant formula, if I see a beautiful and chubby baby on TV, well-fed and smiling." That's the feedback from a mother in Lagos, Nigeria, one of 8,500 mothers and pregnant women in eight countries interviewed for a new report, How Marketing of Formula Milk Influences Our Decisions on Infant Feeding just released by the World Health Organization and UNICEF. The report focuses on marketing practices employed by companies that make up the $55-billion-a-year global infant formula business. (Kritz, 3/1)

A bill moving through the Florida Legislature would help cut cost barriers when infants born prematurely need breast milk from a donation bank. “In the mommy blog world, breast milk is called liquid gold and it’s done so for a reason," said Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota. McFarland has a bill to help babies born into some of the state’s lowest-income families get access to breast milk when its needed. "In Florida, 58 percent of childbirth, the baby is on Medicaid and this donor breast milk is so helpful to those little, tiny babies to get healthy, to get out of the [neonatal intensive care unit] and back to their families quicker," McFarland said. (McCarthy, 3/1)