ScienceDaily - In an examination of potential relationships between objective sleep measures, nocturnal sex hormone levels, and the nocturnal course of body temperature of older postmenopausal women, a new study finds that altered levels of both sex hormones and gonadotropins may contribute to sleep disturbance in older postmenopausal women and confirm the results of previous studies indicating that higher body temperature is associated with poorer sleep quality.
Further, higher body temperature prior to and during sleep was significantly correlated with poorer sleep efficiency and higher luteinizing hormone levels.
Furthermore, several studies have shown that hot flashes and other vasomotor symptoms that influence sleep continue years beyond menopause in up to 40 percent of postmenopausal women.
Thus, the sleep difficulties that emerge at menopause often do not abate and may become compounded by age-associated disruption of circadian and homeostatic processes that regulate sleep."
