Menopause Health Center

Anxiety, Obesity, Smoking May Up Hot Flashes

Impact of Smoking and Body Weight continued...

Researchers from the University of Michigan reported that current smokers and women who were overweight were far more likely to experience bothersome hot flashes as they approached menopause as nonsmoking women and women of normal weight.

Current smokers reported nearly twice as many severe hot flashes as women who did not smoke. And women who were overweight reported seven times more hot flashes that they considered "very bothersome" as women who were not overweight.

The study is not the first to link smoking and obesity to hot flashes. University of Maryland researchers reported in 2003 that women who smoked or were obese had earlier and more severe hot flashes than nonsmoking women of normal weight.

Smokers in this study typically had their first hot flashes two to five years earlier than women who never smoked. Obese women were found to be twice as likely as women of normal weight to have earlier, daily, and more severe hot flashes.

The link between hot flashes and body weight is not clear, says Schiff. "An increase in body weight can result in a higher core body temperature and, possible more hot flashes. This may be offset by increase in estrogen coming from adipose [fat] tissue which would, in turn, decrease the hot flash risk."