Sometimes chronic and prolonged stress may lead to early menopause or premature ovarian failure.
Anjali Malpani, Fertility Expert
Premature
menopause, which is defined as not having a period for 12 consecutive
months before age 40, is even more common in developing countries, where women
who live in rural areas experience menopause about eight to ten years earlier
than in the United States. Researchers aren’t exactly sure what causes early
menopause, but a study from London’s Imperial College indicates that smoking
and socioeconomic status may be at least partly to blame.
Another study, from the Boston University School of
Public Health, supports these findings. Researchers analyzed the cases of 600
women between the ages of 36 and 45 and found that women who live under
economic hardship are 80 percent more likely to experience early menopause.
They suggest that this is due to a combination of factors — one being stress.
Stress symptoms
and causes
Stress comes in many shapes and sizes, and may not even
be perceived as stress at all. According to Dr. Evan Mladenoff, “Stress is an
ignorant state of mind that believes everything is an emergency.” Stress does
not have to produce anxiety or even be perceived consciously before your
internal organs believe there is an emergency situation. There are forms of
“good” stress like marriage, responsibility, competition, dating, and child
birth as well as “bad” forms such as financial insecurity, violence,
unemployment, low self esteem, and death. In actuality, our body does not
associate stress as “good” or “bad,” but reacts the same way whether the stress
is physical, chemical, or emotional. Our bodies were built to respond to stress
and do so very well, but as stress becomes chronic (continual) the stress
regulating parts of the body begin to fatigue, and no longer work as well as
intended. These sluggish stress regulators make it harder for your body to stay
healthy.
Stress (whether emotional, chemical, or physical) is
processed in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus
sends a message to the anterior pituitary gland which is a small gland in the
brain that helps regulate all of your hormones. As the pituitary gland secrets
hormones in the blood signaling stress, another gland called the adrenal gland
responds by secreting cortisol.
Cortisol is designed to control the body’s response to
stress by stimulating the body to calm down. When there is too much cortisol
production, or a chronic situation where cortisol is released over a long
period of time, side effects may occur. Many of these symptoms include
disrupted sleep, poor digestion, weight gain, poor memory, and more.
As a woman, chronic cortisol secretion can contribute to
menstrual disorders. High cortisol levels can lead to amenorrhea (stop
menstruation), similar to heavy exercise. Excess cortisol creates a faster
removal (conversion) of another hormone known as progesterone. As progesterone
and estrogen become out of balance, and a woman nears menopausal age, her body
often creates numerous symptoms of accelerated hormonal transition. Many women
often report vaginal dryness, painful intercourse, weight gain, interrupted
sleep, memory problems, heaviness in the bladder, and hot flashes as their
hormones become out of balance.
Physical or
emotional stress
While data supporting the extensive physical stress as
the possible trigger for early menopause is solid, emotional stress influence
significance is still debated by groups of experts.
The statement that women are under constant pressure have
higher chances to get menopause early was supported by French researchers who confirmed
that stressful working conditions may trigger the onset of the menopause. In
their report published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the researchers
studied 1,500 postmenopausal women. Nearly nine percent said they had stressful
jobs.
"High-strain jobs were categorized as those which
demanded at least one of the following: the need to rush, perform several tasks
at once or frequent interruptions when working. However, the impact of these
conditions was minimized when the woman in question had a high degree of
control over the work she did,” said BBC News.
Members of this group were found to have menopause a year
earlier than the other subjects. Dr. Bernard Cassou, who led the study,
believes that stress affects the hormone balance and causes
the aging of the ovaries.
However, still not all the experts agree on such
conclusion. Professor John Studd, chair of the British Menopause Society openly
expresses doubts on the relationship between stress and early menopause.
"People who want to find links do but there's a vast
body of research which shows there is no evidence of a connection between
stress and the menopause," he said.
While there is still no consensus on the topic, there is
overwhelming evidence that stress can make the symptoms of menopause worse.
Sources and
Additional Information:
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Stress_Causes_Early_Menopause.html