A New Treatment for Menopause?

The symptoms awaken you from a dead sleep in the middle of the night. The hot flashes and night sweats disrupt your normal sleep patterns and make you moody and fatigued the next day. You wonder how much longer you can live with these debilitating symptoms! Currently if you're going through the natural process of menopause, you have only two options. You could use hormone replacement therapy which carries with it a variety of risks including an increased risk of breast cancer or you could go the natural route chosen by more and more women of menopausal age. Unfortunately, the natural route has not proven to be satisfactory for relieving the vasomotor symptoms experienced by the majority of menopausal women. These vasomotor symptoms include hot flashes, mood changes, and night sweats which can have an impact on your ability to function during the day. Not a pleasant experience!

Is there good news for menopause treatment on the horizon? Preliminarily, yes! Several clinical studies presented at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists showed a metabolite of the antidepressant medication Effexor relieved the vasomotor symptoms experienced by millions of menopausal women. The metabolite that appears to be the active agent in treating the annoying hot flashes and mood changes is Desvenlaxafine or DVS. (I'm certainly glad they chose to abbreviate that mouthful!). In fact this metabolite was so effective it resulted in a 50% reduction in the numer of hot flashes at the three highest doses given in the studies. Results were even better when the women were followed for longer time intervals. Women taking DVS showed a decrease in the number of nighttime awakenings due to night sweats and hot flashes. Ah! More restful sleep would be a welcome relief to many menopause sufferers!

Were there any side effects to this medication in the studies? The most common side effects of this menopause treatment were nausea, dizziness and changes in sleep patterns.There appeared to be no adverse affect on libido or other aspects of sexual function, which is commonly seen with similar antidepressants.

Most importantly, this is a non hormone therapy which could provide welcome relief for women unable to take hormone therapy for menopause treatment due to underlying medical conditions such as breast cancer. Could this be the breakthrough menopause treatment millions of women have been waiting for? Further studies will be needed before this medication can be recommended as a menopause treatment option, but preliminary results look promising. Until then, let's keep our fingers crossed that further studies support this medication as a menopause treatment for hot flashes!