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A news study finds that the worse a woman’s skin wrinkles are during the first few years of menopause, the lower her bone density is. The results will be presented Monday at The Endocrine Society’s 93rd Annual Meeting in Boston.

“In postmenopausal women the appearance of the skin may offer a glimpse of the skeletal well-being, a relationship not previously described,” said Lubna Pal, MD, a reproductive endocrinologist and associate professor at Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.

The study demonstrates only an association between bone density and skin wrinkling, stressed Pal, the study’s principal investigator. However, she called their findings noteworthy.

“This information,” Pal said, “may allow for the possibility of identifying postmenopausal women at fracture risk at a glance, without dependence on costly tests.”

The study is an ancillary study to an ongoing multicenter trial called the

• As a woman enters perimenopause she begins to experience a variety of symptoms. She might have hot flashes or night sweats, feel irritable, anxious or have headaches. Other symptoms include low libido, depression and dry skin. Whatever the symptoms are, it usually has to do with fluctuations in a woman’s hormone levels which cause all sorts of problems during the menopausal years. Some women seem to breeze through menopause with a few mild problems, while others are so debilitated with major symptoms, they have difficulty maneuvering through life. For many women, symptoms like night sweats and hot flashes can last well into their sixties.Recently there’s been much research done on foods that help to ease menopausal symptoms. Certain foods and lifestyle changes hold promise as natural remedies for combating the problems associated with menopause. By eating

Women entering into menopause not only report having night sweats and hot flashes, but often report a significant change in their hair compared to when they were cycling regularly. They say the hair on their head is starting to thin or dry out, while the hair on their face is sprouting more often in areas such as their upper lip or chin. Neither change is any fun and often leads to frustration and embarrassment. In the March, 2011 British Journal of Dermatology, researchers looked at menopausal women 45 years an older of northern European descent and found hair changes to be very common.

The results showed 41 percent of women had hair loss in some form. Twenty-six percent experienced a more generalized “all over” hair loss while 9 percent had frontal or top of the scalp thinning.

You are enjoying a night out with friends when it starts; first you feel flush, then a sensation of warmth crawls down your body. Soon you begin perspiring and you feel as if everyone around you can tell what is happening — another hot flash. An estimated three out of four women experience hot flashes  associated with menopause and nearly all would agree they are a nuisance, but experts say there could be an upside to having hot flashes

New research released February 24 in the online edition of the journal Menopause suggests that women who suffer from hot flashes and night sweats may be at lower risk for cardiovascular disease, stroke and death.

“While they are certainly bothersome, hot flashes may not be all bad,” said Northwestern Medicine endocrinologist Emily Szmuilowicz, MD, who is lead author of

A new study shows antidepressants can help reduce hot flashes and night sweats in menopausal women.

In the study, Ellen Freeman, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and her colleagues found that women who were either transitioning to menopause or were postmenopausal had less menopausal hot flashes when they used escitalopram (an antidepressant medication) compared to women who received placebo (a dummy medication or treatment).

The researchers not only tested to find out whether escitalopram or placebo was more effective, but they also examined whether race modified the treatment effects.

More than 200 women were enrolled in the multicenter, eight-week trial.

Between July 2009 and June 2010, the women were given 10 to 20 mg/per day of escitalopram or a matching placebo. Researchers used the women’s daily diaries to measure the frequency and severity of their hot