Ellen Phiddian
Cosmos science journalist
Researchers know there’s a connection between menstruation and mental health, but it’s a complicated one – with the cause and effect between various conditions poorly defined.
A genetic study has found that depression is linked to a higher risk of period pain.
According to the study, published in Briefings in Bioinformatics, depression is the culprit: it’s causing the increased pain.
The researchers studied the genomes and medical records of 572,484 European people, and 8,316 Asian people, taken from various biomedical databases.
“We used a specialised technique called Mendelian randomisation to analyse genetic variation and identify specific genes that may mediate the effect of depression on menstrual pain,” says lead author Shuhe Liu, a PhD student at Xi’an Jiaotong – Liverpool University, China.
Both study groups had a strong link between depression and period pain (dysmenorrhea).
“Our findings provide preliminary evidence that depression may be a cause, rather than a consequence, of dysmenorrhea as we did not find evidence that period pain increased the risk of depression,” says Liu.
The researchers found some key genes and associated proteins in the populations that were strongly linked to both depression and period pain. This suggests there could be some common biological pathways between the conditions.
Another factor was sleep: the researchers found that poor sleep was connected to both conditions.
“We found that increased sleep disturbances could exacerbate menstrual pain. Addressing sleep issues may therefore be crucial in managing both conditions,” says Liu.
“However, more research is required to understand the intricate links between these factors.”
Women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression than men, and – according to the researchers – are particularly vulnerable during the reproductive years.
“Mental disorders are often not considered when treating conditions such as period pain,” says Liu.
“Our findings emphasise the importance of mental health screening for people who suffer from severe menstrual pain. We hope this can lead to more personalised treatment options, and improved healthcare, and reduce the stigma surrounding the conditions.”
The researchers believe that, more work needs to be done to investigate the genes they found, as well as larger studies and experiments that can validate their results.
“Our results provide evidence of a link between our neurological systems and the rest of the body,” says Liu.
“By exploring and understanding these relationships better, we can make a real difference to the millions of people experiencing period pain and mental health issues.”
Update, 29 November: We have changed the headline for this article after receiving feedback that the previous headline may have been misleading.
