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Women who reach menopause early are at significantly greater risk for osteoporosis and bone fracture later in life, a Swedish study has found.

Researchers recruited 390 48-year-old women in 1977 and followed them for more than 34 years, evaluating their bone health. For this study, 198 of the women were still available.

After controlling for age, body mass index, smoking, calcium intake and other factors, the scientists found that compared with other women, those who reached menopause before age 48 had an 80 percent increased risk of osteoporosis, a 68 percent increased risk of bone fracture, and a 60 percent increased risk of death. The results appear online in the journal BJOG.

The study has considerable strengths — an ethnically homogeneous population of exactly the same age, and an extremely long prospective follow-up. But as in all observational studies, there is the possibility of unknown confounding factors.

The reasons for the findings are unclear, but the authors say it may be that hormonal changes of menopause lead to a reduction in bone mineral density and that fracture incidence leads to increased mortality risk.

“I can’t categorically say that there aren’t other factors behind these findings,” said the lead author, Dr. Ola Svejme, an orthopedic surgeon at Skåne University Hospital in Malmö, Sweden.

Still, he added, menopausal women “should have bone density measurements taken in the first decade after menopause.”

Women who reach menopause early are at significantly greater risk for osteoporosis and bone fracture later in life, a Swedish study has found.

Researchers recruited 390 48-year-old women in 1977 and followed them for more than 34 years, evaluating their bone health. For this study, 198 of the women were still available.

After controlling for age, body mass index, smoking, calcium intake and other factors, the scientists found that compared with other women, those who reached menopause before age 48 had an 80 percent increased risk of osteoporosis, a 68 percent increased risk of bone fracture, and a 60 percent increased risk of death. The results appear online in the journal BJOG.

The study has considerable strengths — an ethnically homogeneous population of exactly the same age, and an extremely long prospective follow-up. But as in all observational studies, there is the possibility of unknown confounding factors.

The reasons for the findings are unclear, but the authors say it may be that hormonal changes of menopause lead to a reduction in bone mineral density and that fracture incidence leads to increased mortality risk.

“I can’t categorically say that there aren’t other factors behind these findings,” said the lead author, Dr. Ola Svejme, an orthopedic surgeon at Skåne University Hospital in Malmö, Sweden.

Still, he added, menopausal women “should have bone density measurements taken in the first decade after menopause.”

Women who reach menopause early are at significantly greater risk for osteoporosis and bone fracture later in life, a Swedish study has found.

Researchers recruited 390 48-year-old women in 1977 and followed them for more than 34 years, evaluating their bone health. For this study, 198 of the women were still available.

After controlling for age, body mass index, smoking, calcium intake and other factors, the scientists found that compared with other women, those who reached menopause before age 48 had an 80 percent increased risk of osteoporosis, a 68 percent increased risk of bone fracture, and a 60 percent increased risk of death. The results appear online in the journal BJOG.

The study has considerable strengths — an ethnically homogeneous population of exactly the same age, and an extremely long prospective follow-up. But as in all observational studies, there is the possibility of unknown confounding factors.

The reasons for the findings are unclear, but the authors say it may be that hormonal changes of menopause lead to a reduction in bone mineral density and that fracture incidence leads to increased mortality risk.

“I can’t categorically say that there aren’t other factors behind these findings,” said the lead author, Dr. Ola Svejme, an orthopedic surgeon at Skåne University Hospital in Malmö, Sweden.

Still, he added, menopausal women “should have bone density measurements taken in the first decade after menopause.”

Main Category: Menopause
Also Included In: Bones / Orthopedics
Article Date: 26 Apr 2012 – 0:00 PDT

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Women who go through the menopause early are nearly twice as likely to suffer from osteoporosis in later life, suggests new research published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

The Swedish study looked at the long-term effects of early menopause on mortality, risk of fragility fracture and osteoporosis.

In 1977, 390 white north European women aged 48 were recruited in the Malmo Perimenopausal Study, an observational study where women were followed from age 48 onwards.

The women were divided into two categories; women who started the menopause before 47 and women who started the menopause at age 47 or later.

The women’s bone mineral density (BMD) was measured. At the age of 77, all eligible women were re-measured for BMD. At this point, 298 women were still alive while 92 had died. One hundred out of the 298 women still alive had relocated or declined further participation, leaving 198 women to attend the follow-up measurement.

The study found that at the age of 77, 56% of women with early menopause had osteoporosis, in comparison with 30% of women with late menopause.

Women who started the menopause early were also found to have a higher risk of fragility fracture and of mortality. The mortality rate was 52.4% in the early menopause group compared to 35.2% in the late menopause group. The fracture incidence rate was 44.3% in the early menopause group compared to 30.7% in the late menopause group.

Ola Svejme, orthopaedic surgeon at the Skåne University Hospital, Malmo, Sweden and main author of the paper said:
“The results of this study suggest that early menopause is a significant risk factor for osteoporosis, fragility fracture and mortality in a long-term perspective. To our knowledge, this is the first prospective study with a follow-up period of more than three decades.”
BJOG Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Pierre Martin-Hirsch, added:
“The study’s strength is the length of time the women were observed.
“The higher mortality rate in women with an early menopause needs to be explored further as many other factors could affect this such as medication, nutrition, smoking and alcohol consumption.”

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Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/244553.php

Menopause and sweating

Hot flushes are a common symptom associated with the menopause.

Intense heat starts in your chest and rises to your neck and head. Beads of sweat grow until perspiration runs down your face. It’s a hot flush due to menopause, and it’s a loooong five minutes until it passes.

If you are one of the unlucky ones this can happen 20 or 30 times a day.

Doctors believe that hot flushes and night sweats happen as a result of changing oestrogen levels. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to beat the heat and excessive sweating of menopause.

Slideshow: All about menopause and perimenopause

Will I have hot flushes as I approach menopause?

Hot flushes are one of the most common signs of perimenopause, the years leading up to menopause. Menopause, when your period stops for good, typically happens between age 45 and 55.

Some women experience the heat and flushing without sweating, while others sweat so much they need a change of clothes. When hot flushes happen at night, leaving you and your sheets drenched, they’re called night sweats.

Dr Heather Currie is a gynaecologist and expert on menopause.

She says 85% of women will have hot flushes or night sweats. She says symptoms can be mild, moderate or severe. Some women will only experience them for a few months, for others hot flushes may happen many times a day for several years.

“Hot flushes can have a big impact on the lives of some women,” according to Dr Currie, “It can be embarrassing and psychologically difficult. Night sweats can lead to tiredness and irritability the next day through lack of sleep.”

What causes hot flushes and sweating during menopause?

Hot flushes are triggered by a decrease in levels of the hormone oestrogen which is produced by the ovaries, says Dr Currie who founded the independent website Menopause Matters. When menstrual cycles finally stop, oestrogen levels drop fairly dramatically.

Changing levels of oestrogen affect the part of the brain that regulates temperature – the body’s thermostat which may explain the sweating. She says there are other factors which can influence the severity of flushes.

Your body is programmed to keep your core temperature the same, so when the air temperature rises, blood pours into blood vessels in your skin. You?ll become flushed and start to sweat.

Sweating is your body’s way of cooling off and keeping your core temperature stable.

There are a couple of other theories about why menopause and excessive sweating tend to go hand in hand. Some doctors believe that a proportion of women have very sensitive skin cells which make them prone to hot flushes. Other researchers have suggested that differences in levels of the hormone leptin, which is produced by fat cells, and a drop in blood sugar may play a role in hot flushes.

Source: http://www.webmd.boots.com/healthy-skin/features/menopause-and-sweating?src=RSS_PUBLIC

Main Category: Menopause
Also Included In: Depression;  Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 16 Apr 2012 – 0:00 PDT

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Attitude may play an important role in how exercise affects menopausal women, according to Penn State researchers, who identified two types of women – one experiences more hot flashes after physical activity, while the other experiences fewer.

“The most consistent factor that seemed to differentiate the two groups was perceived control over hot flashes,” said Steriani Elavsky, assistant professor of kinesiology. “These women have ways of dealing with (hot flashes) and they believe they can control or cope with them in an effective way on a daily basis.”

Women who experienced fewer hot flashes the day after participating in vigorous to moderate physical activity were more likely to be part of the group that felt they had control over their hot flashes. Women who had more hot flashes following exercise were likely to be those who felt they had very few ways of coping with their hot flashes, Elavsky and her colleagues report in a recent issue of Maturitas.

Elavsky suggested that cognitive behavioral therapy may help some women feel they have more control over their bodies and reactions to hot flashes.

The participants with fewer hot flashes the day after vigorous exercising were also less likely to experience anxiety and depression. However, women who had fewer hot flashes the day after only light or moderate physical activity had higher levels of pessimism and depression than others.

“The bottom line for research is that people need to look at individual differences,” said Elavsky. “It’s not enough anymore to do a study and look at overall impact of an exercise program on symptoms. It’s very clear that we need to look at the different responses that women might have, and try to understand these individual differences more.”

Elavsky and her colleagues followed 24 menopausal women for the length of one menstrual cycle, or for 30 days if they were no longer menstruating. Each woman used a personal digital assistant to record hot flashes and wore an accelerometer at the hip to track physical activity. The women in the study regularly had hot flashes before the start of the study, experiencing from five to 20 a day.

“The real-time reporting of symptoms and the objective measurement is a strength of the study,” said Elavsky. “There aren’t any studies out there that use both of these approaches. … To ask a woman to report a symptom when she’s experiencing it is the most valid assessment.”

At the beginning of the study, the participants completed evaluations that looked at their depressive symptoms, chronic stress, perceived control over hot flashes, and personality. They had a physical exam where researchers measured levels of reproductive hormones and body composition. Each woman served as her own control, therefore the data was analyzed for each separately.

If a woman experienced a hot flash during the observation period, she entered the event on the PDA, along with the severity and length of the event, where she was, if she had recently consumed a trigger, such as coffee, and included other situational information. At four random times throughout the day, the PDA prompted the woman to assess and record daily stressors and mood. At the end of the day, each completed a fifth assessment and looked retrospectively at how her day went and how well she coped with her hot flashes that day.

“I was surprised by how large the individual differences were,” said Elavsky. “I was also surprised that the association was present in terms of statistically significant association only in a handful of women — and among those, there were two whose physical activity led to more hot flashes the next day and one that had the opposite. Maybe the reason why we don’t see the associations in larger studies is because they cancel each other out.”

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Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/244100.php

Main Category: Menopause
Also Included In: Depression;  Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 16 Apr 2012 – 0:00 PDT

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Attitude may play an important role in how exercise affects menopausal women, according to Penn State researchers, who identified two types of women – one experiences more hot flashes after physical activity, while the other experiences fewer.

“The most consistent factor that seemed to differentiate the two groups was perceived control over hot flashes,” said Steriani Elavsky, assistant professor of kinesiology. “These women have ways of dealing with (hot flashes) and they believe they can control or cope with them in an effective way on a daily basis.”

Women who experienced fewer hot flashes the day after participating in vigorous to moderate physical activity were more likely to be part of the group that felt they had control over their hot flashes. Women who had more hot flashes following exercise were likely to be those who felt they had very few ways of coping with their hot flashes, Elavsky and her colleagues report in a recent issue of Maturitas.

Elavsky suggested that cognitive behavioral therapy may help some women feel they have more control over their bodies and reactions to hot flashes.

The participants with fewer hot flashes the day after vigorous exercising were also less likely to experience anxiety and depression. However, women who had fewer hot flashes the day after only light or moderate physical activity had higher levels of pessimism and depression than others.

“The bottom line for research is that people need to look at individual differences,” said Elavsky. “It’s not enough anymore to do a study and look at overall impact of an exercise program on symptoms. It’s very clear that we need to look at the different responses that women might have, and try to understand these individual differences more.”

Elavsky and her colleagues followed 24 menopausal women for the length of one menstrual cycle, or for 30 days if they were no longer menstruating. Each woman used a personal digital assistant to record hot flashes and wore an accelerometer at the hip to track physical activity. The women in the study regularly had hot flashes before the start of the study, experiencing from five to 20 a day.

“The real-time reporting of symptoms and the objective measurement is a strength of the study,” said Elavsky. “There aren’t any studies out there that use both of these approaches. … To ask a woman to report a symptom when she’s experiencing it is the most valid assessment.”

At the beginning of the study, the participants completed evaluations that looked at their depressive symptoms, chronic stress, perceived control over hot flashes, and personality. They had a physical exam where researchers measured levels of reproductive hormones and body composition. Each woman served as her own control, therefore the data was analyzed for each separately.

If a woman experienced a hot flash during the observation period, she entered the event on the PDA, along with the severity and length of the event, where she was, if she had recently consumed a trigger, such as coffee, and included other situational information. At four random times throughout the day, the PDA prompted the woman to assess and record daily stressors and mood. At the end of the day, each completed a fifth assessment and looked retrospectively at how her day went and how well she coped with her hot flashes that day.

“I was surprised by how large the individual differences were,” said Elavsky. “I was also surprised that the association was present in terms of statistically significant association only in a handful of women — and among those, there were two whose physical activity led to more hot flashes the next day and one that had the opposite. Maybe the reason why we don’t see the associations in larger studies is because they cancel each other out.”

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MediLexicon International Ltd
Bexhill-on-Sea, United Kingdom
MediLexicon International Ltd © 2004-2012 All rights reserved.