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Study links relaxation method to reduced hot flashes

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Although studies of the effects of relaxation techniques on menopause symptoms have yielded mixed results so far, a new report from Sweden comes down in favor of the approach as an alternative to hormone therapy.

Postmenopausal women trained to relax before and during the onset of hot flashes cut the frequency of those events in half during the three-month trial, researchers say. Women in a comparison group that got no treatments experienced little change in their symptoms.

“The results tell you that, yes, this seems to work,” said Kim Innes of West Virginia University, who has studied mind-body therapies for menopause symptoms but was not involved in the new study. “This was a moderate-sized trial that yielded promising – although not definitive – findings regarding the efficacy of applied relaxation,” she told Reuters Health.

In a review of more than a dozen previous clinical trials involving mediation, yoga and Tai Chi therapies, Innes concluded that these techniques may hold promise for relieving menopause symptoms, but it’s too soon to tell. Read full article.

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Hot flashes may return after ending antidepressant

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – For about a third of women taking antidepressants to treat menopause symptoms, hot flashes and night sweats will return after discontinuing the drug, according to a new study.

“It’s important for people to understand that…the benefit of the treatment is related to the duration of the treatment,” said Dr. Hadine Joffe, lead author of the study. But that shouldn’t discourage women from trying an antidepressant if they want to, she added.

“Just because symptoms come back after you stop it doesn’t mean it didn’t make a big difference when you took it,” said Joffe, who is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of research in the Center for Women’s Mental Health at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Escitalopram, an antidepressant sold under the brand name Lexapro, is not approved to treat menopause symptoms, but physicians may prescribe it because some – though not all – studies have found it can reduce the number and severity of hot flashes.

It has “a moderate effect,” Joffe told Reuters Health. “The drug does not eliminate hot flashes, but it can make “a very meaningful improvement in somebody’s life.”

Antidepressants of the same type as Lexapro, called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), are also used to treat menopause symptoms. Read full article.

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Promising Solution To Revitalizing Aging Egg Cells

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An Ottawa scientist has discovered a critical reason why women experience fertility problems as they get older. The breakthrough by Dr. Johne Liu, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and professor at the University of Ottawa, also points to a simple solution that could increase the viability of egg cells for women in their late 30s and older – putrescine water.

In an online editorial published by Agingbased on his recently published findings, Liu outlines how a simple program of drinking water or taking a pill that contains the naturally occurring compound putrescine could reduce the rate at which middle-aged women produce eggs with the incorrect number of chromosomes, the leading cause of reduced fertility and increases in miscarriages and congenital birth defects.

Putrescine is naturally produced in mammals by an enzyme called ornithine decarboxylase,or ODC, and is easily absorbed and cleared by the body. In female mammals, ODC levels are known to rise during ovulation, when the egg cell matures and is released from the ovary. Dr. Liu has shown that ODC levels rise very little in older females. He has also shown that inhibiting ODC levels in young mice leads to an increase in egg cells with chromosomal defects. Read full article.

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Soy: No effect on menopausal hot flashes

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(Medical Xpress)—A team of investigators led by UC Davis found that eating soy products such as soy milk and tofu did not prevent the onset of hot flashes and night sweats as women entered menopause.

Unlike previous studies investigating the relationship between soy and these menopausal symptoms, the current study included a very large population over a long period of time: more than 1,600 women over 10 years. The article, titled “Phytoestrogen and Fiber Intakes in Relation to Incident Vasomotor Symptoms: Results from the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation,” was published online today in Menopause: The Journal of The North American Menopause Society and will appear in the March 2013 print issue of the journal. Read full article.

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Freezing Eggs For Fertility Works, Caution Urged

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Freezing human eggs can be successful in treating infertility — but guidelines issued Friday still urge caution for women hoping to pause a ticking biological clock.

Egg freezing had long been labeled experimental, but the American Society for Reproductive Medicine declared that’s no longer the case. The group cited studies that found younger women are about as likely to get pregnant if they used frozen-and-thawed eggs for their infertility treatment as if they used fresh ones.

The move is expected to help cancer patients preserve their fertility, by pushing more insurers to pay for their procedure, and to boost banking of donated eggs, similar to sperm banking. Read full article.

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Freezing Eggs To Make Babies Later Moves Toward Mainstream

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Doctors who specialize in treating infertility are making a big change in their position on a controversial practice. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) has concluded that freezing women’s eggs to treat infertility should no longer be considered “experimental.”

The group plans to officially announce the change on Monday.

More and more women are using frozen eggs to try to have babies. Some older women use frozen eggs donated by younger women. Some younger women freeze their own eggs while they finish school, focus on their jobs or keep looking for the right guy.

That’s why Jennifer Anderson did it last year.

“I really wanted to have the traditional experience of falling in love and getting married, and then having children. But I know every person’s life path is different, and it hadn’t worked out for me yet to fall in love and get married,” says Anderson, 40, a consultant who lives in Arlington, Va.

So Anderson went to the Shady Grove Fertility clinic in Rockville, Md., to freeze some of her eggs. Read full article.

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Menopause Does Not Result in Weight Gain; It Increases Belly Fat

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Menopause does not result in weight gain among women, however, hormonal adjustments are linked to a difference in fat distribution, which increases belly fat, according to a recent study that has been released by the International Menopause Society in light of the upcoming World Menopause Day on October 18th.

The new trial, published in Climacteric, is a comprehensive, scientifically based report on weight gain when a woman reaches menopause. Read full article.

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Moodiness, Hot Flashes, Sleep Problems? It May Be Peri-Menopause

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At this stage in my life — moving into my late 30s, with many friends rounding the corner into their 40s — I’m starting to hear rumblings, rumors and some early ranting about peri-menopause, and I don’t particularly like it.

Although it means a winding up of your reproductive years and seems to signal getting, um, old, there’s no real reason for dread or alarm, says gynecologist Margery Gass, executive director of the nonprofit North American Menopause Society. “Peri-menopause is a normal and natural phase of a woman’s life — it’s not a deficiency state and it’s not a disease,” she says, noting that peri-menopause ends — and menopause begins — when a woman hasn’t had a period in a full year. Read full article.

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Early Menopause May Double Heart Disease Risk, Study Says

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WEDNESDAY, Sept. 19 (HealthDay News) — Women who experience early menopause may face double the risk of heart disease and stroke, according to a new study.

This increased risk is true across different ethnic backgrounds and is independent of traditional heart disease and stroke risk factors, the researchers said.

The study included more than 2,500 women, aged 45 to 84, who were followed for between six and eight years. Twenty-eight percent of the women reported early menopause, which occurs before the age of 46. Read full article.

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Antioxidants Tied to Older Men’s Sperm Quality

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(Reuters Health) – Middle-aged and older men who get enough antioxidants in their diets may have better-quality sperm than men who are lacking in the nutrients, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that among men age 45 or older, those who got the most vitamins C and E, folate and zinc tended to have fewer DNA-strand breaks in their sperm.

That’s a measure of the genetic quality of sperm, which is known to decline as a man ages.

The findings, reported in the journal Fertility and Sterility, do not prove that antioxidants directly improve sperm quality – or boost the chances of a healthy pregnancy. Read full article.