Vitamin D May Ease Painful Periods

Women Given Large Oral Dose Able to Skip Painkillers, but Approach Needs More Study

A single large dose of vitamin D may help women with painful periods feel more comfortable and skip painkillers, Italian researchers report.

Antonino Lasco, MD, of the University of Messina, and his team compared the use of the vitamin D dose with placebo pills. They studied  40 women, ages 18 to 40. All had painful menstrual periods, known as dysmenorrhea. It affects nearly half of women who menstruate.

Besides pain, there can be nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and sleep problems.

"We observed a significant reduction of pain in the vitamin D group compared with the placebo group over the two-month duration of our study," writes Lasco. The study is published in the Archives of InternalMedicine.

The dose used was very high: 300,000 international units (IU). A dose of 4,000 IU a day is termed the ''upper tolerable'' by the U.S. Institute of Medicine. That would be about 240,000 IU over two months.

Women shouldn't try this approach on their own, warns Tarek Bardawil, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He reviewed the findings for WebMD. "The number of patients studied is very few," he says. "The dose is very high. Before we jump to conclusions, we need further studies."

Excess production of hormone-like substances called prostaglandins can trigger painful periods. Vitamin D is known to reduce their production.

Lasco's team randomly assigned the 40 women to get either vitamin D or placebo pills. The women took them five days before the expected start of their cycle.

For two months, the women tracked their menstrual pain. They told whether they took any off-the-shelf painkillers, like nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).

Those on vitamin D not only reported less pain, none said they took any NSAID painkillers during the two months.

Forty percent of the women on placebo said they took an NSAID painkiller at least once.

The NSAID painkillers are typically prescribed for painful periods. However, long-term use can carry risks such as gastrointestinal problems.

Vitamin D for Painful Periods: Perspective

The Italian study is believed to be the first to look at vitamin D for painful periods, according to JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DrPH, of Harvard Medical School, and Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson, ScD, of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. They wrote a commentary accompanying the study.

However, they say the study is a starting point only. Larger studies are needed, with longer follow-up.

It's not known whether a single dose would be enough. If repeat doses are needed, the focus needs to be on keeping the dose at a safe level, they say.

Researchers also need to look at long-term risks and benefits, they say. Women would likely take this remedy, if it bears out, for many years.

Placebo

What Is the Placebo Effect?

A placebo is anything that seems to be a "real" medical treatment -- but isn't. It could be a pill, a shot, or some other type of "fake" treatment. What all placebos have in common is that there's nothing in them that can treat a medical condition.

How Are Placebos Used?

Researchers use placebos during studies to help them understand what effect a new drug or some other treatment might have on a particular condition.

For instance, some people in a study might be given a new drug to lower cholesterol. Others would get a placebo. None of the people in the study will know if they got the real treatment or the placebo.

Researchers then compare the effects of the drug and the placebo on the people in the study. That way they can determine the effectiveness of the new drug and check for side effects.

What Is the Placebo Effect?

Sometimes a person can have a response to a placebo. The response can be positive or negative. For instance, the person's symptoms may improve. Or the person may have what appears to be side effects from the treatment. These responses are known as the "placebo effect."

There are some conditions in which a placebo can produce results even when people know they are taking a placebo. Studies show that placebos can have an effect on conditions such as:

• depression
• pain
• sleep disorders
• irritable bowel syndrome

In one study involving asthma, people using a placebo inhaler did no better on breathing tests than sitting and doing nothing. But when researchers asked for people's perception of how they felt, the placebo inhaler was reported as being as effective as medicine in providing relief.

How Does the Placebo Effect Work?

Research on the placebo effect has focused on the relationship of mind and body. One of the most common theories is that the placebo effect is due to a person's expectations. If a person expects a pill to do something, then it's possible that the body's own chemistry can cause effects similar to what a medication might have caused.

For instance, in one study, people were given a placebo and told it was a stimulant. After taking the pill, their pulse rate sped up, their blood pressure increased, and their reaction speeds improved. When people were given the same pill and told it was to help them get to sleep, they experienced the opposite effects.

Experts also say that there is a relationship between how strongly a person expects to have results and whether or not results occur. The stronger the feeling, the more likely it is that a person will experience positive effects.

The same appears to be true for negative effects. If people expect to have side effects such as headaches, nausea, or drowsiness, there is a greater chance of those reactions happening.

The fact that the placebo effect is tied to expectations doesn't make it imaginary. Some studies show that there are actual physical changes that occur with the placebo effect. For instance, some studies have documented an increase in the body's production of endorphins, one of the body's natural pain relievers.

One problem with the placebo effect is that it can be difficult to distinguish from the actual effects of a real drug during a study. Finding ways to distinguish between the placebo effect and the effect of treatment can improve and lower the cost of drug testing. And more study may also some day lead to ways to use the power of the placebo effect in medical care.

How Ovulating Women Affect Men’s Speech

 The elaborate courtship displays found in the animal kingdom—a peacock spreading his feathers, the hissing of the Madagascar cockroach—aren’t always appropriate in an office or classroom. Male humans seem to have devised other, less obvious ways of showing off.

A new study suggests that when young men interact with a woman who is in the fertile period of her menstrual cycle, they pick up on subtle changes in her skin tone, voice, and scent—usually subconsciously—and respond by changing their speech patterns.

Specifically, they become less likely to mimic the woman’s sentence structure. According to the researchers, this unintentional shift in language may serve to telegraph the man’s creativity and nonconformity—qualities that are believed to attract potential mates.

Related links:

• 6 Surprising Libido Boosters
• 29 Days to a Healthier Relationship
• A Top Doc Reveals 8 Fertility Misconceptions

“At least a part of the interpersonal dynamic that exists when men and women are getting to know prospective romantic partners is being governed by the biology of a woman’s body and men’s sensitivity to these biological factors,” says Michael Kaschak, PhD, the senior author of the study and an associate professor of psychology at Florida State University, in Tallahassee.

This idea isn’t new to evolutionary psychologists, who have long known that males of various species will change their behavior if they’re trying to find, or hold on to, a mate. In humans, these displays can include risk taking (rashly choosing to “hit” in blackjack, say), writing a romantic poem, or using big words.

Moreover, previous research has found that female fertility cues tend to trigger this type of behavior in men. With that knowledge in mind, Kaschak and his coauthor designed a pair of experiments to test whether a woman’s fertility affects male speech. Their findings appear in the journal PLoS One.

The first experiment included 123 male and five female college students, all of them heterosexual. The researchers tracked each woman’s fertility by marking the beginning and end of her menstrual cycle. At various points in the cycle, they paired off a woman with one of the men in a laboratory.