Frequent menopausal vasomotor symptoms (VMS), including hot flashes and night sweats, lasted for more than seven years during the transition to menopause for more than half of the women in a large study and African American women reported the longest total VMS duration, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.
VMS are the hallmark of the menopausal transition and they can affect the quality of women’s lives. Up to 80 percent of women experience VMS during the transition to menopause and, despite the pervasiveness of these symptoms, robust estimates about how long VMS last are lacking.
Nancy E. Avis, Ph.D., of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, N.C., and coauthors analyzed data from the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), a multiracial/multiethnic study of women transitioning to menopause that was conducted from February 1996 through April 2013. The analyses included 1,449 women with frequent VMS, which was defined as occurring at least six days in the previous two weeks.
To read the entire news release issued by JAMA Internal Medicine, click here.
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Marguerite Beck: marbeck@wakehealth.edu, 336-716-2415