Hot flashes linked with chronic insomnia

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A new study shows how hot flashes, especially severe ones, are associated with sleep problems.
As many as 85 per cent of women going through the menopause report hot flashes - a sensation of heat which may involve sweating. They may occur in the night and disturb sleep but an exact link has not yet been demonstrated.

A team at Stanford Unviersity School of Medicine did telephone interviews with over 3,000 women and found 57.2 per cent to be premenopausal, 22.3 per cent to be perimenopausal and the rest were postmenopausal. Around 33 per cent of all the women reported hot flashes. Where they were severe, around 81 per cent of the women reported chronic insomnia while those with mild flashes did not. The research also looked at how menopausal status was linked in to insomnia and learned that women in perimenopause were mosre likely to be dissatisfied with sleep. One third of the perimenopausal and postmenopausal women thought their sleep issues were related to the menopause. Treating hot flashes might help to improve a woman's sleep, say the researchers.

Source
Archives of Internal Medicine 26th June 266 pages 1262-1268

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