Get inspired by a weekly roundup on living well, made simple. Sign up for CNN’s Life, But Better newsletter for information and tools designed to improve your well-being . Up to 90% of people who menstruate experience pain during their periods.
For some, that pain is severe and linked with symptoms of depression , which are often thought to be a result of the intense throbbing or cramps. But a new study published Wednesday in the journal Briefings in Bioinformatics suggests it may be depression causing period pain , due to specific genes the authors identified — while other researchers said the interplay of internal mechanisms is more complicated than that. “Depression and menstrual pain significantly impact women’s lives across the world, yet their connection remains poorly understood,” lead author Dr.
John Moraros, dean and professor at the School of Science at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in China, said via email. “Our collective goal is to critically investigate these issues and improve care for women by uncovering these complex connections and finding better ways to address them.” Menstrual pain is known as dysmenorrhea , which occurs in the pelvis or abdomen for typically up to three days once the bleeding starts.
Previous studies have shown a correlation between dysmenorrhea and depression but didn’t establish a causal relationship at the genetic level, Moraros said. “We used a clever approach called Mendelian randomization,” he said. “Th.