Cigarette smoking may

Cigarette smoking may worsen premenstrual woes

Dr. Elizabeth R. Bertone-Johnson of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and her colleagues found: Women who smoke twice in a day in the age of (25 to 45 years) are likely to increase premenstrual syndrome over the next 2 to 4 years, especially hormonally related symptoms like backaches, bloating, breast tenderness, and acne.

Bertone-Johnson said: "Our findings lend further support to the idea that smoking increases the risk of moderate to severe PMS and provides another reason for women, especially adolescents and young women, not to smoke."

Up to 20% of women have PMS severe that effect their relationships as well as interfere with their normal activities. Smoking affect at all levels of several different hormones.

To investigate the relationship further, they analyzed data from the Nurses' Health Study II, which has been following 116,678 US registered nurses since 1989. The researchers looked at a subset of women who were PMS-free during the first two years of the study, comparing 1,057 who did go on to develop PMS to 1,968 who did not. The researchers found: the women who were current smokers were 2.1 times as likely as non-smokers to report PMS within the next 2 to 4 years. The risk increased with the amount they smoked, and women who had picked up the habit in adolescence or young adulthood were at even greater risk; those who had begun smoking before their 15th birthday, for example, were 2.53 times as likely to develop PMS.

A 2005 study found that 26% of female 12th-graders had smoked on at least one of the previous 30 days, Bertone-Johnson and her team note in their report. "Given the high prevalence of this behavior in young women," they say, "these findings may provide additional incentive for young women to avoid cigarette smoking."