Aromatherapy may boost massage for menopause relief

A handful of massage sessions with scented oils may help ease menopause symptoms for some women, suggests a small study that found massage with unscented oil also helped, but considerably less.

Many women are looking for alternative ways to manage hot flashes, sleep problems and other symptoms of menopause.

The most effective treatment is hormone replacement therapy, but that carries possible health risks that many women are not willing to take. Hormones have been tied to increased risks of blood clots, heart attack, stroke and breast cancer.

So researchers are studying alternatives - generally with mixed results.

In the new study, Iranian researchers found that massage - either with aromatherapy oils or without - was better than doing nothing for 90 women with menopause symptoms.

"I don't think that's surprising," said Dr. Hilda Y. Hutcherson, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York.

Considering some of the symptoms the study measured - like irritability, depressed mood and sleep problems - it makes sense that a couple of massages per week could make some women feel better, said Hutcherson, who was not involved in the study.

And the added aromatherapy, she said, might work better based on what research suggests about certain scents.

One of the oils used in this study, for example, was lavender.

"Lavender has been shown in studies to help people feel more relaxed," Hutcherson said.

Still, the study had a number of limitations.

"I think the biggest limitation is the small number of people involved," Hutcherson said.

Another is the fact that the researchers measured all menopause symptoms as a group, giving each woman an overall score.

That means it's not clear whether massage, with or without aromatherapy, helps with only certain symptoms. Would it be useful to women whose primary complaint is hot flashes, or vaginal dryness, or insomnia?

"This study doesn't tell us," Hutcherson said.

The findings, reported in the journal Menopause, are based on 90 women who came to a "menopausal clinic" in a Tehran women's hospital.

Fatemeh Darsareh and colleagues at Tehran University of Medical Sciences randomly assigned the women to one of three groups: one that received aromatherapy massage twice a week for four weeks; one that received massage sessions with unscented oils; and a "control" group given no immediate treatment.

The aromatherapy oils included lavender, rose, rosemary, almond and evening primrose.

The women completed a standard menopause symptom-rating scale before and after the four-week treatment period.