Women Can “Work Out” Hot Flashes

June 28, 2012 7:29 am 4 comments

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Art Jahnke

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From researchers at Penn State comes the latest news flash about hot flashes: women who work out have fewer of them. How do they know? A Penn State news release reports that researchers at the school studied 92 menopausal women for 15 days. The women, who were 40 to 59 years old and had no hormone therapy, were monitored for physical activity and skin temperature, and also asked to record their own hot flashes when they felt them. Curiously, many of the hot flashes recorded by the women failed to register on the monitoring equipment, suggesting that many hot flashes are more subjective than real. And while it might seem that exercising would raise body temperature and increase the number of hot flashes, the researchers found the opposite to be true. The women experienced fewer hot flashes after exercising. Read more from Penn State. In another study, researchers have found that meditation can chill hot flashes.

4 Comments

Susan Rowell

June 28, 2012
11:53 am

I’m assuming men were in charge of the research.

Reply
Benedict

June 29, 2012
4:56 am

Good info! Thanks for sharing with us on your blog.

Reply
Bobbi

June 29, 2012
7:04 am

Not true! I work out religiously and exercise has never curbed them. Should have used me in your study, your outcome would have been much different. Try again.

Reply
Jocasta

June 29, 2012
9:23 am

This from a study of skin conductance and hot flashes (the measure used in this study): During the study period, 10 women reported and demonstrated every hot flash, 24 women never reported or demonstrated a hot flash, 7 demonstrated hot flashes but did not report any of them, 7 reported hot flashes but did not demonstrate any of them, and 19 showed a mixture of responses (Freedman et al., 2002). The ‘objective’ measure clearly has some problems. Just because a hot flash doesn’t register on monitors doesn’t mean it isn’t real. For years doctors told women that menstrual cramps and premenstrual syndrome were ‘all in our heads’ so now I guess it is the hot flash that gets that treatment,

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