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Vasomotor symptoms (VMS) during the preceding day have been positively associated in a recent study [1] with next-day negative affect expressed as: mood swings, feelings easily hurt, irritable, difficulty concentrating, forgetful, anxious and blue/down in a sample of 625 women aged 42–52 years, of five racial/ethnic groups who reported at least one menstrual period in the last 3 months, were not using sex steroid hormones, had an intact uterus and at least one ovary. Subjects were drawn from a substudy of the Study of Women’s Health across the Nation (SWAN), known as the Daily Hormone Study (DHS). Women were asked to keep a diary during an entire menstrual cycle until bleeding or 50 days, whichever occurred first, of 14 mood and physical states, rating how strongly they were felt using a Likert scale ranging from 1 = ‘not at all’ to 4 = ‘a lot’. They were also asked to register whether or not they had experienced abdominal pain/cramps, trouble sleeping and hot flushes/night sweats during the previous 24 h. Covariates previously related to both VMS and mood such as age, education, site, and ethnic/race group were considered in the analysis. Older age, less education, perimenopause status and poorer health were related to the report of VMS on the previous day, and being Chinese was associated with fewer reports of daily VMS. The most interesting result in this study was the predictive value of reported VMS, adjusted by same-day negative affect as a predictor of next-day negative affect (odds ratio (OR) 1.27; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.03–1.58; [i]p[/i] < 0.01) and negative affect not being predictive of next-day VMS (OR 1.11; 95% CI 0.85–1.35; [i]p[/i] = 0.55), thus indicating a consequential effect of VMS over negative affect.

Author(s)

  • Deborah Legorreta
    Mexico City, Mexico

Citations

  1. Gibson CJ, Thurston RC, Bromberger JT, Kamarck T, Matthews KA. Negative affect and vasomotor symptoms in the Study of Womens Health Across the Nation Daily Hormone Study. Menopause 2011;Sept 1. Epub ahead of print
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21900850
  2. Burleson MH, Todd M, Trevathan WR. Daily vasomotor symptoms, sleep problems, and mood: using daily data to evaluate the domino hypothesis in middle-aged women Menopause 2010;17:8795.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19675506
  3. Kravitz HM, Avery E, Sowers M, et al. Relationships between menopausal and mood symptoms and EEG sleep measures in a multi-ethnic sample of middle-aged women: The SWAN Sleep Study. Sleep 2011;34:122132.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21886360
  4. Brown DE, Sievert LL, Morrison LA, Reza AM, Mills PS. Do Japanese women really have fewer hot flashes than European Americans? The Hilo Womens Health Study. Menopause 2009;16:8706.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19367185
  5. Kravitz HM, Zhao X, Bromberger JT, et al. Sleep disturbance during the menopausal transition in a multi-ethnic community sample of women. Sleep 2008;31:97990.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18652093
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