TV and movies often make light of "moodiness" linked to women's menstrual cycle, but Canadian researchers say female mood/hormone studies are needed.

Kathy Hegadoren of the University of Alberta said mood disorders are a serious and pervasive health problem, and large-scale population studies have found women are 1.5 to 3 times more likely than men to suffer from major depressive disorder. The reasons for the gender disparity in rates of depression are not completely understood, Hegadoren said.

"But there is growing evidence that estrogens have powerful effects beyond their role in reproduction that they play a critical role in mood disorders in women -- and this opens new avenues for research into the underlying biological mechanisms and treatment of depression," Hegadoren said in a statement.

The study, published the journal Biological Research for Nursing, recognizes that multiple factors may be at play in the development of mood disturbances -- with individual, psychosocial and environmental factors interacting in complicated ways to create differential vulnerability in women and men -- but the link to sex hormones is hard to deny.  // Copyright 2007 by United Press International



Publication date: 14 December 2007   

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