Hot flushes linked to insomnia

A study in the US suggests women who have severe hot flushes may have more chronic sleep problems than women who do not.

According to a report in the June 26 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, as many as 85% of menopausal women experience hot flushes, sensations of heat that may also involve sweating. Hot flushes often occur during the night and have been associated with insomnia, or difficulty sleeping.
The exact link between hot flushes and insomnia has been difficult to establish because other factors also influence sleep in menopausal women.

The study by Dr. Maurice M. Ohayon of the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California, involved telephone interviews with 3,243 individuals in California, including 982 women ages 35 to 65 years, between June 2003 and April 2004.
Hot flushes were defined as mild if they did not usually involve sweating to severe if they typically involved sweating and required a woman to stop an activity.

About 15% had severe hot flushes and more than 81% of women with regular severe hot flushes had symptoms of chronic insomnia. These women reported difficulty falling asleep, non-restful sleep and overall dissatisfaction with their sleep patterns on a regular basis (at least three nights a week for at least the past six months).

These problems were not reported any more frequently by women with mild hot flushes than women with no hot flushes.