Abstract
It is widely recognized that fluctuations of steroid hormones during women's menstrual cycle induce various physiological and psychological changes and sometimes cause undesirable condition such as premenstrual syndrome (PMS). In the present study we take advantage of menstrual distress questionnaire (MDQ) to screen subjects having normal menstrual cycle but being aware of distresses especially on luteal phase. Healthy women subjects (N=16, aged22±1) are divided into two groups of those who marked high scores on this questionnaire (MDQH) and others who scored relatively low (MDQL). Their steroidal hormones (cortisol, estradiol, progesterone and testosterone) concentrations in saliva are analyzed with ELISA and restoring time of skin temperature after cold stimulation (RT) is measured which indicates the autonomic nervous activity of cutaneous peripheral artery. Then the salivary hormonal levels of MDQH subjects are rather higher than of MDQL while they showed less fluctuation and RT is significantly longer throughout the cycle. The acute stress-loading test is also demonstrated on these two groups (N=22, aged24±3) by means of Stroop's color and word confliction task. And subjects of MDQH are found to be less responsive for acute stress and show no changes in salivary cortisol level and RT. Based on these results, we consider that the hyporesponsiveness for stress or stimulation could correlate with women's menstrual distresses out of the therapeutic range and thus it should be taken into account to cope with their complaints. [J Physiol Sci. 2006;56 Suppl:S208]
