Calcium, Vitamin D May Help Prevent Premenstrual Syndrome

Premenstrual syndrome, commonly referred to as PMS, is the name given to a collection of symptoms that occur in females between ovulation and a woman's menstrual period. Although the symptoms of PMS may vary between individuals, they typically include depression, irritability, fatigue, abdominal cramps, breast tenderness, and headaches, and are often severe enough to interfere with one's activities of daily living.

In this nested, case-control study, researchers examined calcium and vitamin D intake in approximately 3,000 women ages 27 to 44, including 1,057 women who had developed PMS during a 10-year period. Intake was measured at three intervals throughout the study period (1991, 1995 and 1999), along with factors such as age, body mass index, and smoking status. In addition, because it is considered an excellent source of both calcium and vitamin D, milk consumption was also monitored.

Results: After adjusting for age and other factors, women in the highest quintile for total calcium intake were shown to have a lower relative risk of developing PMS (.80) compared to women with the lowest calcium intake. High total vitamin intake was also associated with a significantly lower risk of PMS; compared with women in the lowest quintile, those with the highest vitamin D intake had a relative risk of .59. Finally, frequent milk consumption was associated with a reduced incidence of PMS. The relative risk for women consuming four servings of skim or low-fat milk per day, compared to those reporting one serving or less per week, was .54.

The study's authors concluded that their findings "suggest that a high intake of calcium and vitamin D may reduce the risk of PMS." They recommended that future clinical trials be conducted, and that "in the interim, given that calcium and vitamin D may also reduce the risk of osteoporosis and some cancers, clinicians may consider recommending these nutrients even for young women."

Bertone-Johnson ER, Hankinson SE, Bendich A, et al. Calcium and vitamin D and risk of incident premenstrual syndrome. Archives of Internal Medicine 2005;165:1246-1252

Chiropractic for PMS PMS has many possible causes, describes a wide range of presenting signs and symptoms suffered during the premenstrual phase of a woman’s menstrual cycle, and is clinically managed with many different types of treatment.

As part of a randomized clinical trial to determine the effectiveness of chiropractic in managing PMS, 84 subjects (54 with diagnosed PMS and 30 without any such diagnosis) were evaluated for initial underlying spinal dysfunction. All subjects underwent a complete chiropractic examination performed by 1 of 2 chiropractors (each with a minimum of 10 years experience) and results were compared between study groups at a teaching clinic.

The PMS group showed a higher percentage of positive responses for all of the spinal indexes (e.g., spinal tenderness, muscle weakness, neck disability, etc.) except for low back range of motion. An average of 5.4 of the 12 indexes were positive for the PMS group, compared with an average of 3.0 for the non-PMS group.

Conclusion: PMS sufferers may be more likely to present with spinal clinical findings as measured by standard chiropractic examination procedures. The authors suggest that presence of such findings could be an associated factor in PMS.

The authors admit that a lack of examiner blinding may have contributed to potential bias in the study results. Frequent Consumption of Red Meat Linked to Colorectal Cancer The association between high red meat intake and increased risk of colorectal cancer has been established in the scientific literature for approximately two decades. Less well-known is the association between colorectal cancer and the intake of fish. A recent study of men and women in 10 European countries has solidified the relationship between red meat and colorectal cancer, while finding that high fish consumption can substantially reduce colorectal cancer risk.

In this analysis, scientists examined the health records of more than 478,000 men and women (ages 35 to 70) who had participated in a prior study designed to investigate the relationships between diet, lifestyle, genetic and environmental factors, and the incidence of cancer. Among the variables measured in the study were intake red meat, processed meat, and fish. At the start of the study, all of the participants were free of cancer; after a mean follow-up examination of 4.8 years, 1,329 patients had been diagnosed with colorectal cancer.

Analysis of the questionnaires revealed that people who ate an average of 160 or more grams of red or processed meat per day were 35% more likely to develop bowel cancer than those who ate less than 20 grams per day. Increased fish intake, meanwhile, was associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer. Participants who consumed more than 80 grams of fish per day had a 31% reduction in the incidence of colorectal cancer compared to those eating less than 10 grams of fish per day. Subjects with high intakes of red meat and low intakes of fish were 63% more likely to develop colorectal cancer compared to subjects with low red meat intake and high fish intake.

"We found a consistent positive association between high intake of red and processed meat and colorectal cancer, and an inverse association between high intake of fish and colorectal cancer," noted the authors in their conclusion. "These findings held in models adjusted for age, sex, and energy and in models adjusted for other covariates."

Norat T, Bingham S, Ferrari S, et al. Meat, fish, and colorectal cancer risk: The European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, June 15, 2005;97(12):906-916.