Research by Hungarian fertility experts published (Thursday 10 June, 2004) in Europe’s leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction, has revealed that the onset of the menopause may not be dictated only by the fact that a woman’s lifetime supply of eggs are running low, but also by changes in the seasons.
Analysis of reliable questionnaires from over 100 patients at the menopause clinic at Baranya County Teaching Hospital in Pécs, revealed that the spring and autumn equinoxes played a conspicuous role in the timing of the menopause.
“We found that there was a high peak after the spring equinox and another, lower one, after the autumn equinox,” said research leader Dr János Garai.
Of the 102 women whose questionnaires were analysed, 72 remembered the exact month that their menstrual periods stopped, while 30 could recall only the season.
The results for the seasonal distribution of the first missed bleeding in the peri-menopause were:
|
Month/Season |
Numbers of women recording first missed bleed |
|
January |
6 |
|
February |
7 |
|
Spring |
15 |
|
March |
9 |
|
April |
9 |
|
May |
8 |
|
Summer |
4 |
|
June |
8 |
|
July |
4 |
|
August |
1 |
|
Autumn |
6 |
|
September |
5 |
|
October |
7 |
|
November |
5 |
|
Winter |
5 |
|
December |
3 |
Said Dr Garai: “Seasonal variations of reproductive functions in wild animals are well known, and similar but not so definite seasonal trends have been described for humans. The menopause is a complex set of symptoms that we know is determined partly by external and partly by internal influences, but there are only scarce data about the exact nature of environmental and/or lifestyle determinants. So we wanted to find out more in the hope that this might help in the future in implementing innovative approaches to treating problems in the menopause.”