Scientists Just Discovered One Reason Menopause Symptoms Might Be Worse for Certain Women

4 min readNew research suggests that women with type 2 diabetes may experience more severe symptoms of menopause. Several theories explain what could be behind the link.Ob-gyns say there are a few things to consider when it comes to management.The recent spotlight on menopause has made one thing very clear: All women experience this life stage differently, with some struggling with symptoms like hot flashes and brain fog more than others. While data suggest that lifestyle habits and good ol’ genetics may play a role in your personal experience, new research adds one more thing to consider: whether or not you have type 2 diabetes.The study, which was published in the journal Menopause, found a link between women who have type 2 diabetes and more severe symptoms of menopause. That doesn’t mean you’re destined to have a rocky menopause journey if you have type 2 diabetes. Instead, the study suggests that there’s some overlap between how type 2 diabetes and menopause impact your body—and dealing with one may ramp up the symptoms of another.There is some takeaway here, and luckily, it’s not that women with type 2 diabetes necessarily need to buckle up now. We asked ob-gyns to break it down.Meet the experts: Jessica Shepherd, MD, a menopause expert and author of Generation M; Sherry Ross, MD, an ob-gyn at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California.What did the study find?For the cross-sectional study, researchers looked at 296 women in South Korea aged 40 to 64. The researchers determined whether the participants had diabetes using blood tests. The participants also answered questions about menopause symptoms they experienced and how severe they were.Based on the findings, 220 women had type 2 diabetes or had pre-diabetes, which is considered the stage before diabetes. The researchers compared their health data with the 76 remaining women who didn’t have diabetes.After breaking things down further, the researchers discovered that women with diabetes reported having more menopause symptoms on average compared to those who didn’t have diabetes (a little more than 20 vs. less than 16). The women with diabetes also reported more severe symptoms compared to those who didn’t have the condition. As a result, the researchers concluded in their study that “Tailored interventions may help managing symptom burden and improve overall quality of life in this population.”Why might menopause symptoms be worse in women with type 2 diabetes?It’s important to point out that the study didn’t find that type 2 diabetes caused more severe symptoms of menopause. Instead, it found a link between having the condition and reporting more intense symptoms.Still, doctors say there could be something here. “The simplest way to understand this is that menopause and diabetes can each place stress on many of the same systems in the body,” says Jessica Shepherd, MD, a menopause expert and author of Generation M. “As estrogen levels fluctuate and eventually decline during the menopausal transition, women can experience changes in insulin sensitivity, body composition, sleep, inflammation, mood, and cardiovascular health. Type 2 diabetes affects many of those same pathways.”As a result, the symptoms of menopause and type 2 diabetes could “amplify” each other, she says. “Insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction can contribute to inflammation and changes in energy metabolism, while menopause can contribute to changes in body composition and insulin sensitivity,” Dr. Shepherd points out. “Both can also affect sleep and mood.”Diabetes can also damage and weaken blood vessels, which stresses the body’s ability to control temperature and blood flow, says Sherry Ross, MD, an ob-gyn at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California. That can make hot flashes worse, she points out.Insulin resistance with diabetes also affects how well the body deals with declining estrogen levels, Dr. Ross adds. “Since menopause also causes insulin resistance, symptoms of weight gain, obesity, loss of muscle mass, and increased fat stores make glucose metabolism even more disruptive,” she says.What should women take away from this?It’s easy to look at this and think that better managing your type 2 diabetes could impact your menopausal symptoms, but doctors say it’s tough to make that conclusion at this point.“Managing diabetes and menopause separately should always be a priority, but controlling both conditions should also be an important goal,” Dr. Ross says. “Their connection is real, but treatment options are different.”Still, Dr. Shepherd says that it “makes sense” to want to improve your health in both areas. “If we improve glucose control, reduce metabolic risk, improve sleep, support muscle mass, and address weight and cardiovascular health, we're potentially improving the overall environment in which a woman is experiencing menopause,” she says.Ultimately, it’s best to have an honest conversation with your healthcare provider about how you’re feeling and what your goals are. From there, you can work toward a solution together. “Healthy lifestyle guidance belongs in every annual well woman visit, so women have the information to manage their hormonal and metabolic health together,” Dr. Ross says.Carina Hsieh, MPH, is the deputy features editor of Women’s Health. She has more than a decade’s worth of experience working in media and has covered everything from beauty, fashion, travel, lifestyle, pets, to health. She began her career as an intern in the fashion closet at Cosmopolitan where she worked her way up to Senior Sex & Relationships Editor. While covering women’s health there, she discovered her passion for health service journalism and took a break to get her Masters in Public Health. Post-grad school, she worked as a freelance writer and as The Daily Beast’s first Beauty, Health, and Wellness Reporter. Carina is an alum of the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Yale School of Public Health. She and her French Bulldog, Bao Bao, split their time between Brooklyn and Connecticut. She enjoys reformer Pilates, (slow) running, and smelling the fancy toiletries in boutique fitness class locker rooms.