WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Altered levels of both sex hormones and gonadotropins -- which affect the ovaries -- may contribute to sleep disturbance in older women, a U.S. study says.
Study author Patricia J. Murphy, of Weill Cornell Medical School in White Plains, N.Y., focused on 10 women between 57 and 71 years of age, who were at least five years past menopause.
Lower estradiol, a sex hormone, and higher luteinizing hormone, a hormone synthesized and secreted by gonadotropes, levels were significantly correlated with indices of poor sleep quality, with relationships between luteinizing hormone and quality of sleep being stronger than those for estradiol.
In addition, significant increases from basal luteinizing hormone levels occurred more frequently after sleep onset than prior to sleep onset, and 30 of 32 of these luteinizing hormone pulses occurred prior to long awakenings from sleep.
The study, published in the journal Sleep, also found higher body temperature prior to and during sleep was significantly correlated with poorer sleep efficiency and higher luteinizing hormone levels.
