Background: Iron requirements are increased in adolescent girls with growth and the onset of menarche and remain high in women until menopause. Methods: We conducted a study on two study groups of girls in age group 18-25 years belonging to different socioeconomic classes as per the Modified Kuppuswamy’s Scale to study the effect of the phases of menstrual cycle & socioeconomic class on the iro...

BACKGROUND Some of the patients with idiopathic hypoparathyroidism (IHP) report symptoms of hypocalcemia during menstruation. There is limited data on this observation. METHODS Twenty six menstruating women with IHP and 26 healthy controls were questioned regarding symptoms suggestive of hypocalcemia during menstruation. Twelve patients and eight controls were asked to prospectively monitor s...

To evaluate the complex time course of changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during the menstrual cycle, daily beat-to-beat morning recordings of heart rate (HR) were carried out in 26 healthy female subjects (age 20-29 years) during two menstrual cycles. For determination of fast, vagally mediated variations of HR we used a robust time-domain measure of RSA (logRSA). We found pronounce...

The benefit of sleep in general for memory consolidation is well known. The relevance of sleep characteristics and the influence of hormones are not well studied. We explored the effects of a nap on memory consolidation of motor (finger-tapping-task) and verbal (associated-word-pairs) tasks in following settings: A: young, healthy males and females during early-follicular phase (n=40) and B: fe...

Regeneration and growth of the human endometrium after shedding of the functional layer during menstruation depends on an adequate angiogenic response. We analysed the mRNA expression levels of all known vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) ligands and receptors in human endometrium collected in the menstrual and proliferative phases of the menstrual cycle. In addition, we evaluated the ex...

The authors explored whether exposure to 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane (DDT) and its isomers and metabolites affects female reproductive hormones characterized by urinary pregnanediol-3-glucuronide (PdG) and estrone conjugate (E(1)C) levels. During 1996-1998, 287 newly married Chinese women nonsmokers intending to conceive were prospectively studied. Serum for DDT measurement wa...

AIM To investigate whether hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle affect corticospinal excitability, intracortical inhibition (ICI) or facilitation (ICF) in primary motor cortex, and also whether the hormonal fluctuations have any effect on manual dexterity in neurologically intact women. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty volunteers (10 Female, 10 Male) were included in this study. The l...

Stressors as subtle as night work or shift work can lead to irregular menstrual cycles, and changes in reproductive hormone profiles can adversely affect bone health. This study was conducted to determine if stresses associated with the disruption of regular work schedule can induce alterations in ovarian function which, in turn, are associated with transient bone resorption. Urine samples from...

Approximately 80% of all women of reproductive age experience psychological and physical changes associated with the premenstrual phase. Cognitive alterations are among the most common complaints. In this context, studies have assessed cognitive performance across the menstrual cycle in healthy women and also in women with premenstrual syndrome (PMS). The main objective of the present study was...

Men typically outperform women in spatial navigation tasks, while the advantage of women in verbal fluency is more controversial. Sex differences in cognitive abilities have been related to sex-specific cognitive strategies on the one hand and sex hormone influences on the other hand. However, sex hormone and menstrual cycle influences on cognitive strategies have not been previously investigat...