Friday October 5 10:51 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Progesterone is not an effective remedy for premenstrual syndrome (PMS), researchers report.
Their findings are based on a review of 14 studies investigating the hormone progesterone or progestogens--a group of drugs similar to progesterone. The study included more than 900 women who experience PMS.
The investigators found that oral and suppository-based progesterone and progestogen therapies were no better than an inactive treatment (placebo) when it came to improving physical and behavioral symptoms of PMS, such as depression, irritability, abdominal pain, fatigue and headache.
``There is no evidence to support the claimed efficacy of progesterone in the management of premenstrual syndrome,'' Dr. Katrina Wyatt and co-authors from Keele University in Stoke-on-Trent, UK, write in the October 6th issue of the British Medical Journal.
The most common side effect associated with oral therapy was fatigue, and the most common side effect reported for suppository treatment was a change in the length of the menstrual cycle.
The use of progesterone-based therapy to treat PMS is based on the unsubstantiated belief that a lack of the hormone is the cause of symptoms, the researchers explain. Up to 70% of prescriptions for PMS are progesterone- or progestogen-based, the report indicates.
Up to 1.5 million women in the UK experience symptoms of PMS that are severe enough to affect the quality of life and interfere with relationships, and more than 35% of these women will seek medical treatment.
SOURCE: British Medical Journal 2001;323:776-780.