PMS: New Relief?

PAIN

PMS is a real pain, particularly for the five to 10% of women with
premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), or severe PMS. But now scientists
are one step closer to finding relief.

Researchers aren't sure what causes PMDD, but women with the
disorder know what it means: severe joint and muscle pain, headaches,
breast tenderness, fatigue. To better understand why certain women
experience so much more discomfort during menstruation, psychiatric
experts at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill compared
the pain threshold of 27 women with PMDD to that of 27 women with mild
PMS by restricting blood flow to their arms with blood pressure cuffs.
Their results, published in the May/June issue of Psychosomatic Medicine,
indicate that not only do women with PMDD have a lower pain threshold and
shorter tolerance times, but their blood levels of beta-endorphins--the
body's natural pain-killing hormones--were about 30% lower than that of
non-PMDD sufferers.

If women with PMDD have significantly lower levels of
beta-endorphins, particularly a few days before and after their period,
why not raise their hormone levels to help lessen the pain?
Unfortunately, it's not that easy, according to Susan S. Girdler, Ph.D.,
assistant professor of psychiatry at UNC, because there's no simple test
that measures beta-endorphin levels. "Moreover," Girdler explains, "We're
really looking at a syndrome with multiple determinants, beta-endorphins
being just one of them."

But the discovery does offer hope: Assuming low beta-endorphin
levels are at least partially responsible for PMDD, Girdler suggests that
exercise may quell the symptoms. Exercising not only raises
beta-endorphin levels, but has also been proven to reduce stress--yet
another debilitating symptom of the disorder.

ILLUSTRATION (COLOR)