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Women with ovarian condition prone to depression
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Dec. 13, 2010
Women with primary ovarian insufficiency are twice as likely to have depression than other women, says a new National Institutes of Health study.
Sixty-seven percent of 174 women with the condition evaluated by researchers were clinically depressed or had experienced depression in the past. Most women with the condition are in their teens or 20s when they have their first symptoms, which resemble menopause and include hot flashes and infertility as they stop producing normal amounts of reproductive hormones.
"Because of the strong association with depression, our results indicate all women diagnosed with POI should be thoroughly evaluated for depression," said Lawrence M. Nelson, MD, study co-author and head of the Integrative and Reproductive Medicine Group at the NIH Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
The study was published online Nov. 3 in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (link).
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/12/13/prbf1213.htm.
