Link Made To Increased Stress Hormone Levels, Implications For Infertility Treatment.(women who stop menstruating have increased cortisol levels)

2001 JUL 12 - (NewsRx Network) -- Increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol are clearly elevated in the bloodstream of child-bearing-aged women who have stopped menstruating, a senior researcher at the Magee-Womens Research Institute has found.

The study is significant because it also shows that a psychological intervention and stress-reduction therapy can have a positive impact on infertility associated with the cessation of menstruation.

Called functional hypothalamic amenorrhea (FHA), the condition affects some 5% of women in their reproductive years. It is characterized by wildly irregular or absent periods - often for as long as two years or more.

"FHA isn't caused by any real defects in the reproductive system," explained Sarah Berga, MD, a professor in the departments of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences and psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pennsylvania. "We thought using stress-reduction techniques might reverse the process, and our results show we were right."

Berga presented the study findings at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the Endocrine Society held in June 2001. Now in its seventh year, the ongoing study has included both human volunteers and primates to link stress and infertility due to FHA.

"We are finding out how stress causes infertility," said Berga, who is also director of the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the Magee-Womens Hospital of the UPMC ...