Although hot flashes are linked to menopause, studies indicate women experience a gradual increase in body temperature from early adulthood through midlife.
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A woman’s resting body temperature gradually increases year-by-year from age 18 to 42, though the exact reasons remain uncertain. This finding suggests potential applications for temperature-sensing wearables to monitor aging, peri-menopause, and related health conditions.
“Temperature signals may hold critical insights about health,” says Marie Gombert-Labedens from SRI International, a California-based research institute. “Our aim is to stimulate further studies to uncover new health markers that could provide unexplored health insights.”
In their 1990s study, researchers investigated over 750 women aged 18 to 42 who recorded their oral or rectal temperature daily upon waking.
The results revealed that participants typically had lower body temperatures during the first half of their menstrual cycle and higher temperatures in the second half around ovulation. Many fertility tracking apps capitalize on this temperature spike to help identify a user’s fertile window.
The research team further analyzed the data to assess the impact of age on body temperature across different menstrual phases. They discovered an average yearly temperature rise from ages 18 to 42. Consequently, women over 35 recorded temperatures approximately 0.05°C higher than their younger peers throughout both halves of their cycles.
This suggests that the skin temperature monitored by smart rings indicates women aged 42 to 55 are generally warmer than those between 18 and 35.
Although more studies are necessary to clarify the reasons behind this temperature increase, Gombert-Labedens suggests it may be linked to hormonal shifts as women approach their reproductive twilight years. As perimenopause starts, body temperature may surge, causing hot flashes and night sweats, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear.
The initial study only included women not on hormonal contraception and without hormonal disorders like PMOS (previously termed PCOS), leaving unknown factors that could influence body temperature changes over time.
Previous research indicates that post-menopause, women’s body temperatures often rise, although they tend to return to more stable levels similar to men’s. Enduring lower temperature levels and alignment with male averages.
Gombert-Labedens noted that the midlife increase in temperature may account for why some women report feeling warmer than their younger selves. “We hypothesize that higher body temperatures in middle-aged women could alter their thermal perception and reactions to the environment,” she adds.
With the rise of smart rings and temperature-sensing devices, identifying individual temperature variations could help predict approaching menopause, assess biological aging rates, and uncover early signs of ovarian cancer among other conditions, says Gombert-Labedens.
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Source: www.newscientist.com
