Painful menstruation? Study claims it's an early marker of hypertension

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As if the premenstrual syndrome (PMS) among women is not bad enough, a new study suggests that those with moderate-to-severe PMS could have a higher risk for high blood pressure later in their lives.

The study published in the current issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology is the first prospective study to consider PMS as a possible sentinel for future risk of hypertension, according to a EurekAlert press release from the University Of Massachusetts At Amherst.

"To my knowledge, this is the first large long-term study to suggest that PMS may be related to the risk of chronic health conditions in later life," epidemiologist Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson said.

Bertone-Johnson and her research team from the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Harvard School of Public Health found out that there is a 40-percent higher risk of developing high blood pressure over the following 20 years for those women with moderate-to-severe PMS as compared to those who are experiencing minimal menstrual symptoms.

After adjusting for high blood pressure risk factors such as being overweight or obese, smoking, drinking, inactivity, use of birth control pills, postmenopausal hormone use and family history of high blood pressure, the researchers said that the higher risk is still there.

The study involved about 1,260 women who developed clinically significant PMS between 1991 and 2005, as well as more than 2,400 women with mild PMS. Both groups were followed until 2011.

"The study is important in identifying an important condition that should lead to closer observation for the onset of high blood pressure," said Dr. Stacey Rosen, vice president of women's health at The Katz Institute for Women's Health in New Hyde Park, N.Y., the WebMD reported.

However, "one important limitation is that the average age of these patients was 27 years—it would be helpful to see if this association persisted in younger women as well," she added.

Meanwhile, according to Dr. Deena Adimoolam, assistant professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, there are many physicians who don't consider PMS as a risk factor for hypertension and that women should not be overly concerned about this association.

She said that this is because the study did not identify and exclude women with conditions that can look like PMS, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, anxiety disorders and irritable bowel syndrome. There is a good chance that PMS is wrongly diagnosed.