Periodic Male Tension - yes, that's you - The Guardian
Tom Thumb
are left undiagnosed ... But it could be that men really do have a
lower threshold to pain than women, and that they are simply making a
fuss about nothing."
I wonder would she be happy to say to a newspaper: "it could be that
women really do have a lower threshold to pain than men, and that they
are simply making a fuss about nothing."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1302257,00.html
Periodic Male Tension - yes, that's you
Kirsty Scott
Saturday September 11, 2004
The Guardian
Those monthly mood swings, long considered an exclusively female
affliction, may not be as gender specific as once thought. Men, say
researchers, can get pre-menstrual tension too. A study by
psychologists from the University of Derby suggests that men may
experience cyclical symptoms similar to, or even worse than, those
suffered by pre-menstrual women, including moodiness, discomfort and
loss of concentration. Everything, it appears, apart from the bloat.
The researchers asked 100 men and women to complete questions relating
to seven types of symptoms usually attributed to the menstrual cycle.
"We were stunned when the men started reporting suffering from all the
traditional PMT [pre-menstrual tension] symptoms," said Dr Aimee
Aubeeluck, who presented her findings to the British Psychological
Society's annual conference in Edinburgh yesterday. "They got unusual
headaches, had severe mood swings and reported losing concentration at
certain times of the month.
"To be honest, we still haven't managed to come up with an explanation
for what causes it. But there has been previous research that suggests
we all have natural internal biorhythms, and the male symptoms could
somehow be caused by that. It could be that we all have these cyclical
changes in our moods, and that it is completely coincidental that
women also menstruate cyclically. Because men don't have periods, they
simply dismissed those cyclical symptoms as being caused by other
outside factors."
The men and women taking part in the study answered 47 questions
relating to pain, concentration, behavioural change, physical
reactions, water retention, negative feelings, arousal and control.
Men completed the questionnaire once while women completed it on three
separate occasions over one menstrual cycle. The men scored on average
higher on all of the sections except water retention.
Dr Aubeeluck said she hoped to carry out more research on men in the
future to discover if they suffered PMT symptoms at specific times of
the month, like women.
"I believe our research suggests that there may be some other, as yet
undiscovered, cause for many of the symptoms that are generally
dismissed by doctors as being PMT in women," she said.
"It also suggests many men are suffering from cyclical changes that
are left undiagnosed ... But it could be that men really do have a
lower threshold to pain than women, and that they are simply making a
fuss about nothing."
deepblue
Tom Thumb
> The email address to write to on this patronizing article?
Letters to the editor
Letters for publication should be sent to: let...@guardian.co.uk
Good luck.