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Food craving, mood and the menstrual cycle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

John Bancroft ,
Ann Cook  and
Lynn Williamson
John Bancroft*
Affiliation:
MRC Reproductive Biology Unit, 37 Chalmers Street, Edinburgh
Ann Cook
Affiliation:
MRC Reproductive Biology Unit, 37 Chalmers Street, Edinburgh
Lynn Williamson
Affiliation:
MRC Reproductive Biology Unit, 37 Chalmers Street, Edinburgh
*
1 Address for correspondence: Dr John Bancroft, MRC Reproductive Biology Unit, 37 Chalmers Street, Edinburgh EH3 9EW.
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Synopsis

Seventy-six women, with a mean age of 35–7 years, who reported premenstrual craving for sweet foods in a retrospective questionnaire, were assessed prospectively with a pre- and postmenstrual eating questionnaire and daily ratings of craving, mood, irritability and breast tenderness over two menstrual cycles.

In 72 % of these women a perimenstrual pattern of food craving was confirmed. In 13 % this craving was confined to the menstrual phase. There was no consistent association between food craving and mood change, either in timing or severity. Women with more severe mood change did not report more severe craving. There was also no association between food craving and cyclical breast tenderness. Perimenstrual food craving, therefore, appears to be a cyclical phenomenon in its own right, of uncertain aetiology and worthy of further study.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , November 1988 , pp. 855 - 860
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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