A large study revealed that more than half of women experienced symptoms of menopause such as hot flashes and night sweats for more than seven years.
The study also found African American women reported the longest total frequent menopausal vasomotor symptoms (VMS) duration, the JAMA Network Journals reported.
"Despite the high prevalence of VMS among midlife women, surprisingly little research has been done on the underlying etiology, individual differences in symptom presentation, sociodemographic and clinical correlates, or duration of symptoms," Gloria Richard-Davis of the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences, and JoAnn E. Manson, of Brigham and Women's Hospital wrote in a related commentary. "The present study by Avis et al is highly informative and allows for a more individualized approach to counseling women about VMS, including cultural and racial/ethnic differences."
To make their findings the researchers followed 1,449 women with frequent VMS between February 1996 and April 2013. The results showed the median total VMS duration was 7.4 years. Women who were premenopausal or early perimenopausal when they first reported their symptoms were found to have a median length of symptoms of a whopping 11.4 years. Women who were postmenopausal when their VMS began had the shortest durations at a median of 3.4 years.
African American women reported the longest total VMS duration at a median of 10.1 years while Japanese and Chinese women had the shortest durations at medians of 4.8 years and 5.4 years, respectively. The total median VMS durations were found to be 6.5 years for non-Hispanic white women and 8.9 years for Hispanic women.
Other factors found to be linked to longer VMS durations included "younger age, lower educational attainment, greater perceived stress, greater sensitivity to symptoms, and higher depressive symptoms and anxiety at first report of VMS," the researchers reported.
"These findings can help health care professionals counsel patients about expectations regarding VMS and assist women in making treatment decisions based on the probability of their VMS persisting. In addition, the median total VMS duration of 7.4 years highlights the limitations of guidance recommending short-term HT [hormone therapy] use and emphasizes the need to identify safe long-term therapies for the treatment of VMS," the study concluded.
