Do Women with Dysmenorrhea Present Altered Sleep and Inflammatory Mediators’ Levels?

Keywords

sleep - dysmenorrhea - inflammation - menstruation - hormonal contraceptive - inflammatory mediators

Introduction: Painful menstruation is the main symptom of dysmenorrhea, a dysfunction that affects more than 50% of women during reproductive phase. It is a recurrent inflammatory pathology that can strongly impact women's life by causing academic and work absenteeism, social problems, lower performance, and sleep complaints.

Aim: The objective of this study was to analyze the level of inflammatory mediators and the sleep of women with dysmenorrhea (Dysm) during menstruation (Menst) and compare them to healthy women and among non-menstruated (Non-Menst) and oral contraceptive (OC) use women.

Methods: We distributed 328 women into 6 groups: Dysm + Menst (n = 35); Dysm + NonMenst (n = 83); Dysm + OC (n = 45); Menst (n = 26); NonMenst (n = 88) and OC (n = 51). All these groups have undergone a one-night polysomnography (PSG) and had IL-6, Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) and C-reactive protein (CP) measured. Menstruation and painful menstruation episodes were asked and reported on the night of the PSG by gynecological questionnaire to enable group distribution. For statistical analysis, we used Generalized Linear Model, and Sequential Bonferroni post hoc test which corrects for multiple comparisons.

Results: The groups of Dysm + NonMenst and Dysm + Menst showed lower sleep efficiency (82.8% ± 1.54;79.7% ± 2.4, respectively) when compared with group using OC (88.8% ± 0.99). The CP was found significantly increased in Dysm + OC women (0.45mg/dL ± 0.05) when compared with NonMenst (0.27mg/dL ± 0.02) and Dysm+NonMenst (0.24mg/dL ± 0.02) women. The TNF level was statistically higher in NonMenst women (9.9pg/mL ± 0.69) compared with Menst women (7.73pg/mL ± 0.67). Sleep latency, total sleep time, awakenings/hour, N1, N2, N3, REM sleep and IL-6 had not presented any statistical differences among the groups investigated.

Conclusions: Our results indicated that dysmenorrhea did not affect the sleep efficiency of women using OC; however, this condition was related to increased cardiovascular risk in these women.

No conflict of interest has been declared by the author(s).

Publication History

Article published online:
15 June 2023