Associations of Genitourinary Symptoms in Menopause

In perimenopausal and postmenopausal women, lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) are highly prevalent, according to research presented earlier this month at the 25th Annual Meeting of The North American Menopause Society.

Masakazu Terauchi, MD, PhD, NCMP, who presented the study findings, and other researchers from Japan evaluated the records of 351 women who participated in the Systematic Health and Nutrition Education Program at the Menopause Clinic of the Tokyo Medical and Dental University Hospital from 2007 to 2012. The symptoms they evaluated, which included frequent urination, nocturia, urge incontinence, and stress incontinence, together or alone can greatly reduce quality of life. They then looked at various background characteristics, such as body composition, handgrip strength, ruler test reaction time, and others, to assess whether these were associated with any of the four LUTS.

What they found was that these symptoms were relatively common among the women, whose average age was 52 years. Frequency was the most common symptom (45.9% of participants were bothered by this), followed by stress incontinence (32.8%), urge incontinence (11.4%), and nocturia (10.8%).

Even more interesting, they found the following associations:

- Frequent urination and nocturia are associated with non-restorative sleep.

- Urge incontinence is assocated with delayed reaction time.

- Stress incontinence is associated with obesity.