Why do ppl get hot flashes?!
Question: wat does that indicate?
Answers: wat does that indicate?
1. Definition
a) Hot flushes or flashes
Heat intolerance
Excessive perspiration
Night sweats
Chills or chilly sensations
2. Incidence and Duration
a) First year postmenopausal-------65-75%
2-5 years postmenopausal------25-50%
> 5 years postmenopausal------19-25%
3. Frequency
a) Every few hours----- 21%
Daily----------------47.7%
Thompson et al, 1973
4. Severity
a) Embarrassment only------20.5%
Acute physical discomfort and embarrassment----------48.5%
McKinlay and Jefferys, 1974
5. Temperature Dynamic Changes
a) Temperature rise: Finger, toe, cheek: as high as 5oC
Temperature decline: Rectum, vagina, tympanic membrane
Perspiration
Increased skin conductance
http://lib-sh.lsumc.edu/fammed/grounds/m...
Nearly 50% of menopausal women complain of sudden sensations of flushing and extreme warmth, followed by profuse sweating and sometimes shaking or tremor. These episodes occur at irregular intervals from a few to many times a day and may awaken the patient at night. In about 15% of women they are severe enough to limit normal daily activities.
It is important to remember that this and other menopausal symptoms may have their onset prior to actual cessation of the menses, since estrogen levels fall progressively in the perimeno-pausal period. Investigations have shown that these episodes, objectively identifiable by altered skin and core temperature and skin resistance, precede LH and FSH secretory rises by just a few minutes.
http://www.sph.jhu.edu/pubs/jepi/nov297c... (dead link)
After hysterectomy:
Women who were postmenopausal with 2 ovaries removed were less likely to have hot flashes if they were on HRT, but women with 0-1 ovary removed who were on HRT were more likely to have hot flashes than those not on HRT.
Black women and obese women were more likely to have hot flashes in all cases.
http://fcs.chm.msu.edu/hotfl.htm
Hot flashes are experienced by both men and women. They are the most common symptom of menopause and are also the most frequent side effect associated with the drug tamoxifen (Nolvadex), which is used in the treatment of breast cancer. Men also report hot flashes as a result of treatment for prostate cancer. Approximately two-thirds of men receiving Lupron, Leuprolide, Zoladex, and Buserelin report having hot flashes.
A hot flash may be so brief and mild that the temperature change is barely noticeable. Flushing or sweating may occur, but may not be extreme. Moderate hot flashes include a warm to extremely warm feeling accompanied by sweating and the reddening of the skin. A severe hot flash may cause a person to experience an intense hot feeling, heavy sweating, and skin flushing. Relief may come from stopping activities and fanning, showering, changing clothes, or lying down. Hot flashes are often spontaneous, but may be triggered by hot or spicy foods, hot beverages, caffeine, alcohol, stressful events, or changes in environmental temperature.
Extract from the November 15, 1997 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology
Hormone Replacement and Menopausal Symptoms Following Hysterectomy.
Patricia Langenberg, Kristen H. Kjerulff, and Paul D. Stolley. (University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD) Am J Epidemiol 1997;146:870-80
Women who were postmenopausal with 2 ovaries removed were less likely to have hot flashes if they were on HRT, but women with 0-1 ovary removed who were on HRT were more likely to have hot flashes than those not on HRT.
Black women and obese women more likely to have hot flashes in all cases.
Dr Love on the mechanism of a hot flash:
"Apparently what happens when you get a hot flash is that the normal mechanism overshoots. Normally, if you get hot, how do you cool down? Your face gets red because blood rushes to the vessels nearest the surface so that they can release heat more easily, and you sweat. A hot flash is misnamed: it's really an attempt by the body to cool down. Researchers think that hot flashes happen when the set point of the thermoregulator gets abruptly shifted. It's as though someone has walked by and pushed the thermostat in your head down to 55 degrees. Your brain says, "Uh-oh , you're 98.6 degrees now-that's too hot!" and immediately tries to cool you down by increasing your heart rate and the blood supply to your skin so that you blush and sweat. You may not actually have been too hot, but you will cool down." (p.43.)
shelly wrote:
Great! I was hoping we would run into a basic research scientist on the issue of hot flashes.
That doesn't describe me I'm afraid, but perhaps I can help on these questions...
1. How many calories are burned up during a hot flash?
I'll tell you where to get your answer. It seems that hot flushes were only studied seriously beginning about ten years ago. At that time there were a number of experiments in physiology laboratories to characterize the phenomenon and determine correlates. For example, it was found that the frequency of hot flushes correlated with the frequency of Luteinizing Hormone pulses from the pituitary. It was also shown that hot flushes involved some thermal and vasomotor iregularities. But which was the causative factor and which was just a secondary effect? What was the mechanism of the flushes? These questions were not addressed in the early studies.
Since then there have been some experiments designed to get us closer to answers concerning the mechanisms. In my opinion, the most elegant of these experiments were done -- and continue to be done -- by Dr. Robert R. Freedman and his team at Wayne State University in Detroit. As an example, it was unknown whether peripheral vasodilation was caused by a circulating chemical, or if it was caused by nerve impulses in the sympathetic nervous system resulting in local changes. So Dr. Freedman designed an experiment in which the nerves to one hand of the experimental subjects were blocked with an anesthetic, and then the vasodilation was measured. By this means it was found that the cause was a circulating substance.
Freedman also did an experiment where he had menopausal women ingest a pill containing a miniature thermometer and radio transmitter, so that the body core temperature was recorded during the period of hot flushes. It is these type of experiments which should give you your answer on calorie expenditure.
(Freedman RR, Woodward S. 1996. Core body temperature during menopausal hot flushes. Fertil Steril. 65(6):1141-44.)
2. What is chemically getting flushed out of the body in a hot flash that is different from regular heat regulation perspiration as it has a characteristic odor unlike regular perspiration and is not as salty.
I have seen no information on that in the literature. However, I have seen a study on a substance which lowers LH when inhaled. If LH is a trigger for hot flashes, then you could have a scratch & sniff card to reduce symptoms...
3. Is there some significance to them being primarily an upper body phenomenon? Does this burn up calories on the upper body so that the weight is deposited in the lower body as many of us notice new fat collection patterns at menopause more in the belly and hips? Is this meant to be extra weight bearing to keep our hips stronger and pad them in case of falls? Is the fat in the belly a collection spot for the conversion of fat produced estrones after our ovaries decrease their production of estrogen?
Visceral fat tends to be related to insulin levels. The more insulin, the more abdominal fat. Also as you'll see from the following abstract, estrogen promotes lipolysis (fat burning) of abdominal fat. So the fat deposition pattern is hormone related. As well, estrogen determines the distribution in the body of the alpha-2 adrenergic receptor "fat magnets." I'd guess it is simply a matter of feeling more heat because there is more fat for insulation.
(Giudicelli Y, Dieudonne MN, et al. 1993. Modulation by sex hormones of the membranous transducing system regulating fatty acid mobilization in adipose tissue. Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids. 48(1):91-100.)
"By using ovariectomized rats, it was found that estradiol 'in vivo', while having no effect in subcutaneous cells, promotes catecholamine-stimulated lipolysis in deep intraabdominal adipocytes by increasing their adenylate cyclase catalytic activity."
Robert
I get a premonition first. Just a feeling, and awareness of "oh my goodness, I'm going to have a hot flash". Joan
According to Sandra Coney in "The Menopause Industry" the hot flash may be triggered by a sudden downward setting of the centralhypothalmic thermostat. To adjust the core temperature of the body to this new setting, heat loss mechanisms such as vasodilation and sweating are activated. This explanation tallies with the known fact that during a hotflash a woman's central body temperature falls.
I know from my own experience, the premonition feeling is often preceded by a flash of angst at something I am thinking, some sort of internal conflict of values is going on in me at the time. Other times this is not so readily distinguishable. But often enough I found that by changing my stress perceptions and honoring that moment of angst, I was able to change my reactions to similar situations and lessen or eliminatethe flashes. (E.g. Out-dated perfection issues, moral and guilt issue conflicts, authority figure issues, competition issues, little-girl thinking dependency issues, unreasonble fear issues...etc)
The authors who speculate menopause is a time for unfinished business would view this angst wake-up call one of the benefits of hotflashes as they give a way to relook at ourselves and our reactions to the world around us. By far the biggest benefit of letting them happen is that I no longer take those angst feelings inside me as a gut or heart reactions. Rather the angst is expelled in the flash, and not felt internally. Has anyone else noticed this? It is subtle but feels very real. My former "gut reactions" of psyche danger are now hot-flash reactions.
Joan L. (Not the same as the above Joan)
> >I doubt that hot flashes are principally caused by lowered estrogen levels as such. If they were, why doesn't everybody have them, and why don't the people who do have them, have them consistently?
> >
> >Pat (Crone)
This is still a research mystery. It is accepted that it is not just lack of estrogen as pre-pubescent girls do not have hot flashes.According to Dr. Susan Love, it is a result of hormone flucuations. The origin of the flashes is in the hypothalamus, not the ovary. And increases in the stress hormones- flight or fight - hormones are shown in the blood during hot flashes, where as they can not pin down any actual increases or decreases in the female hormones during them.
Pure speculation here but does the act of castration itself set off extreme stress reactions in the body that may be part of the severe reactions post surg? Have any other drugs besides estrogen been studied to see if quiescence of post surgical symptoms can be also achieved?
The discussion of hot flashes in the Annals of NY Academy of Sciences remained perplexed at the biochemistry of hot flashes which showed no relation to female hormones actually causing them butr ecognized that estrogen has some impact on controlling them. But how often do we also get reports that "hormones are no longer working to control hot flashes" along with the reports that they are working superbly.
asd
Subject: Re: hot flash as protector
On Fri, 11 Jul 1997 tishy@cheerful.com wrote:
NB: Wild surmise only follows (disclaimer as required)
1. Biochemical properties esp hormones cause sexual desire
2. Sexual desire causes sexual activity
3. Sexual activity causes rise in temperature, increased breathing rate, sensations in entire body of "something" flowing which can be dampened or increased by breathing pattern and attitude of mind.
4. Sexual activity results in sexual satisfaction with increased flow of genital fluids OR sexual activity is frustrated and results in flow of eyefluids (tears which have been clinically proven to contain differing components when shed as the result of emotion/onions)
Biochemical end result - excretion of harmful excess biochemicals which triggered the subjective feeling of desire, through 3 routes: skin, breath, and body fluids.
Considering meno changes:
1. Biochemical components change in ratio
2. Change of ratio affects degree and frequency of sexual desire.
3. Harmful level of biochemical(s) is reached without triggering sexual desire.
4. Harmful level triggers rise in temperature, sensation of something flowing through the entire body which can be dampened or increased by attiude of mind.and breathing pattern
5. Lacking increased flow of genital fluids, adequate excretion is not achieved so body temperature is further raised (hot flash) and or tears (crying jags, fits of rage...) initiated.
So stopping a hot flash would be stopping excretion of a harmful excess of a carcinogenic something (which doesn't have to be estrogen maybe it's even progesterone!) Just a thought!
Pat,
Your "scientific" justification is as valid as anything else we have seen. And best of all, it even makes intuitive sense. ;-)
And you may not be that far off as Wayne State research found that deep breathing can mitigate hot flashes. (Cite in asm archives) So this theory of "flushing" out "something" from the body via perspiration and/or respiration is intriguing. (Whimsy) And it appears to be something that would be easy to test and analyze. (Plea) Yet, even this basic information about physiological flushing is missing. (Snit) And yes it is an activity of the master brain glands and not of the ovaries. So master brain thoughts can easily influence the production of neurochemicals which in turn affect the rest of us. (UCLA psychoneuroimmunology research - Norman Cousins - Head First)
Prolactin was the oddity in the difference between tears of sadness and tears from onion irritation. (Tear book previously cited in the archives) The odor of the meno flush is also uniquely characteristic and quite different from exercise and heat perspiration. (Personal testimony) "Something" is getting flushed out in the meno hot flash. (Speculation) Why do we not know what this is before we try to turn it off? (Genuine question) This could be an extremely important self-regulatory system we are subverting by our rather drastic attempts to eliminate it. (Snit and speculation combo)
Don't you just suspect that if Mother Nature had over a million years to evolve an adaptive biological system, that there may be some purpose that we should figure out first, before we go drugging it to turn it off? (Speculation and snit combo)
Would it have been a good idea to drug away menstruation even though we spent years adapting around the nuisance it caused in our lives. (Logic argument) Where did this wisdom come from that it is okay to drug away hot flashes? (Genuine question) Or was Dr. Reuben right? Off to the scrap heap once our ovaries shut down so Mother Nature's only plan was to drive us crazy and into self-inflicted extinction once we served our only useful purpose on the planet. (Tee, hee, humor, C., humor)
I mean like, they didn't have divorce lawyers in those days so what was Joe Caveman to do with the dried up old bag? (Unauthorised legal solicititation) Let her just sit in the corner of the cave and melt away. (Snit) That was the plan. Damn, how do you think women botched up this grand plan so badly by historically out living the old coots anyway? (Hope) I guess Mother Nature just wanted us to live in prolonged suffering by making us worthless post-meno, and then demanding we out live our usefulness for a very long time. What a bum deal. (Sarcasm intended)
its blood circulation. it either means they are having their period, or menopause, some people get dizzy during them
it often indicates a penile penetration deficiency