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Originally Posted by C Elegans The funny thing is that a recent British study just reported that males have more PMS symptoms than women, with one sole exception: abdominal swelling. To understand this result, one must know that PMS symptoms are specified as including headache, mood swings, depression, hot flushes, poor concentration, stomach cramps, swelling of the lower abdomen, etc, etc. (I don't remember all the symptoms by heart). In a study where men and women reported how frequently and intensly they felt these symptoms, it turned out that males reported they had more or even of all symptoms except water retention. . |
Unless this study actually checked male physiological changes against a lunar cycle, it might as well be about ordinary changes that occur in people from day to day, and thus be irrelevant. Though interesting. FWIW, I've never thought men were free of lunar cycle influence; I never saw any reason for thinking so. Merely because the most obvious symptom of these monthly shifts, menstruation, doesn't occur in males, hardly renders us immune to changes. One might as well think that because the symptoms of a stroke aren't visible, strokes don't occur. Of course, I have no scientific studies to point to for my conclusions regarding male responses to the lunar cycle.
It's also interesting to note that according to a recent study, 78% of American men believe PMS is part of the normal menstruation cycle. I wonder if this is something the drug industry propagates in order to sell more SSRI:s?
When it's part of urban myth among peer groups of early adolescents, nothing else is required to spread the nonsense. But I suspect the drug industry does nothing to promote a better awareness of PMS. That's probably left to physicians, and it's not as though they're going to communicate this knowledge in the course of visits by male patients. Females...well, one hopes.