Rebecca Thurston, PhD of the University of Pittsburgh, is the person bringing us this cheery news based on her recent study of women over 60. She recently published her conclusions in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
Previous research on perimenopausal women has shown that heavier women tend to have more hot flashes, which is why it is often suggested that women lose weight in order to control them. Indeed oestrogen dominance is often cited as a frequent cause of hot flashes and rebalancing the body’s hormones so that oestrogen and progesterone are in harmony is often all that it takes to reduce them. However, this new research is based on the fact that after a woman reaches menopause, and her ovaries no longer produce estrogen, it now seems that the heavier the woman is, the fewer hot flashes she experiences.
Before you break out the chocolates, remember this only applies to women over the age of 60, as Thurston’s findings show no benefit to women younger than this. This is a small scale study of only 52 women who were having hot flashes and not taking any medication that might affect them. Thurston concluded: “Our study showed that higher adiposity, BMI and waist circumference were associated with fewer physiologically-assessed hot flashes among older postmenopausal women with hot flashes.”
It also seemed that the link between body weight and hot flashes was most pronounced among Caucasian women, and other ethic groups again did not show the same benefit.
Now you can break out the chocolates!