VMS management: An internist’s view
Transcript: Individual differences in VMS
Dr Lisa Larkin
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So in women's health, we like to say that pregnancy is a choice, but if women live long enough, menopause, all women will go through menopause, a 100% of women. And this is clearly a natural phase of a woman's reproductive life, and it's associated with declining ovarian function and decreased oestradiol levels.
What we know though is, all women experience the menopause transition differently. Some women have very significant symptoms and others really have mild to none. I like to say, it's the rule of thirds, about 30% of women will transition with relatively mild symptoms. Symptoms that they can manage just with changing their thermostat in their house or taking off blankets when they're sleeping at night. About 30% of women have moderate symptoms, which are more bothersome, but again, they often can manage through lifestyle. And then about 30% of women have the very severe symptoms where they're really disabling.
Again, what we know is that there's variability in the severity and frequency of symptoms among women, but there's also, variability and there's race and ethnic variability, but there's also, genetic variability among women in terms of duration of these symptoms. So we know that in the average women, they can last up to about seven years, but there's wide range in that. Some women, they don't last very long at all. Other women, they can last lifetime. In fact, we think about 15%, data suggests about 15% of women will have lifetime vasomotor symptoms. And again, there's racial and ethnic differences and differences among individual women, both on frequency, severity, and duration.
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