Publication Date
2020-08-27
UMMS Affiliation
Graduate School of Nursing
Document Type
Article
Disciplines
Endocrinology | Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism | Hormones, Hormone Substitutes, and Hormone Antagonists | Reproductive and Urinary Physiology | Women's Health
Abstract
Context: Melatonin may play a role in the regulation of the human menstrual cycle and may decline with menopause and/or aging.
Objective: The objective of this work is to investigate the relations between melatonin and the menstrual cycle, menopause, and aging.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of 20 participants from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN) Daily Hormone Study (DHS). The outcome measure was first-morning urine assay of 6-sulfatoxymelatonin (aMT6s), a gauge of melatonin. For each participant, aMT6s was measured daily during one premenopausal cycle with evidence of luteal activity (ELA) and one postmenopausal collection with no evidence of luteal activity (NELA).
Results: In addition to the organized patterns of hormone metabolites (estrone conjugates [E1c], and pregnanediol glucuronide [PdG]) and gonadotropins that characterized ovulatory menstrual cycles, there was a late luteal rise in aMT6s. In NELA collections, there was no periodicity of E1c, PdG, gonadotropins, or aMT6s. The strongest predictors of aMT6s levels were PdG values 11 to 12 days prior to aMT6s (beta = 1.46, P = .001 and beta = 1.44, P = .001, respectively). E1c and gonadotropins were not statistically significantly associated with aMT6s. Mean aMT6s in premenopause was 53.5 ng/mL, greater than the mean of 37.4 ng/mL in postmenopausal samples from the same women (P = .0002).
Conclusions: This study confirms a late luteal melatonin rise, likely signaled by progesterone, which may influence menstrual cycle pacemaker control. Melatonin declined from premenopause to postmenopause. A high correlation between menopause transition stage and age precludes distinction between the influences of ovarian and chronological aging.
Keywords
aging, melatonin, menopause, menstrual cycle
Rights and Permissions
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Endocrine Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com
DOI of Published Version
10.1210/jendso/bvaa115
Source
Greendale GA, Witt-Enderby P, Karlamangla AS, Munmun F, Crawford S, Huang M, Santoro N. Melatonin Patterns and Levels During the Human Menstrual Cycle and After Menopause. J Endocr Soc. 2020 Aug 27;4(11):bvaa115. doi: 10.1210/jendso/bvaa115. PMID: 33094207; PMCID: PMC7566378. Link to article on publisher's site
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Journal of the Endocrine Society
Related Resources
PubMed ID
33094207
Repository Citation
Greendale GA, Witt-Enderby P, Karlamangla AS, Munmun F, Crawford SL, Huang M, Santoro N. (2020). Melatonin Patterns and Levels During the Human Menstrual Cycle and After Menopause. Graduate School of Nursing Publications. https://doi.org/10.1210/jendso/bvaa115. Retrieved from https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/gsn_pp/151
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Included in
Endocrinology Commons, Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism Commons, Hormones, Hormone Substitutes, and Hormone Antagonists Commons, Reproductive and Urinary Physiology Commons, Women's Health Commons