Are you a smoker who’s bothered by premenstrual backaches, bloating, breast tenderness or acne? Believe it or not, your plunging hormones may be less to blame than your cigarettes. A recent analysis of the famed Nurses’ Health Study reveals that smoking makes women more than twice as likely to develop moderate to severe premenstrual syndrome. The link? Smoking affects hormone levels and depletes the body of vitamin D—both of which worsen PMS, says study co-author Elizabeth R. Bertone-Johnson, Sc.D., from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
[photo: Valentin.Ottone]
