DEFINING DEMOCRACY Government of the People. Democracy may be a word familiar to most, but it is a concept still misunderstood and misused in a time when totalitarian regimes and military dictatorships alike have attempted to claim popular support by pinning democratic labels upon themselves.
In most women who undergo natural menopause, hot flashes subside within 2 to 5 years after the last menstrual period. In a small number of women, however, hot flashes can continue for 8 to 15 years after the last menstrual period. There is some evidence that women who go through menopause due to surgery may have more severe hot flashes for more years than women who go through natural menopause.
The study, from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, found that women who start getting hot flashes before menopause or in the early stages of menopause tend to have them longer. The investigators followed a group of about 400 women in their 30s and 40s, none of whom had reached menopause in 1995 when the study began. They tracked these women for 13 years, interviewing each one annually. They found that only 55 of the women had no hot flashes at all during the course of the study. Another 90 reported only mild flashes. The rest described moderate to severe hot flashes during at least one interview. The researchers found that African-American and normal-weight women reported having moderate to severe hot flashes at more of the interviews than did Caucasian women and obese women. However, the study didnât document the frequency of hot flashes.