Can Ethnic Background and Lifestyle Affect Menopause?
Sept. 6, 2000 -- A new study suggests that midlife women are not all in the same boat when it comes to those common and often annoying side effects of menopause. In fact, it may be that symptoms of midlife changes, including hot flashes, night sweats, and forgetfulness, are more or less likely depending on a woman's lifestyle and ethnic background.
In addition, researchers found that the intensity of those symptoms is likely to vary from the early stages, or perimenopause, that time of hormonal change before and after menstruation stops, to the later phases, known as postmenopause. Results of the study appear in the September issue of the AmericanJournal of Epidemiology.
The number of women going through menopause in the U.S. is expected to double by the year 2025. Until now, many women's health providers believed that all women have similar body processes and similar midlife symptoms.
Not so, according to study author Ellen B. Gold, PhD, an epidemiologist and professor of epidemiology and preventive medicine at the University of California, Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. Gold and her team found, for instance, that women who stopped smoking and were physically active reported lower frequency of symptoms.
And "for women facing midlife, the findings mean that most women will experience the greatest symptoms during the perimenopause but that these will decline somewhat postmenopausally, although perhaps not to premenopausal levels," Gold tells WebMD.
The results came out of the first phase of the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation, known as SWAN. In surveys distributed to more than 16,000 women in seven areas of the U.S., women of five ethnic groups were asked about several symptoms such as hot flashes or night sweats, leakage of urine, vaginal dryness, joint stiffness/soreness, heart pounding or racing, forgetfulness, irritability, tension, and difficulty sleeping. African-American, Japanese, Chinese, Hispanic, and Caucasian women were represented in the study.
As for the variation of symptoms based on race and ethnicity, researchers found that all symptoms except forgetfulness were less frequently reported in Japanese and Chinese women when compared to white women. African-American women were more likely to experience hot flashes or night sweats and vaginal dryness when compared to white women, but they were less likely to report urine leakage or sleep problems.