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Dealing with vasomotor symptoms—commonly known as hot flashes or night sweats—during menopause can feel like an exhausting game of Whac-A-Mole. You’re told to look for patterns and avoid triggers, but they can be difficult to pinpoint—just when you think you have a sense of what can bring on a hot flash sequence, one arises seemingly out of nowhere. This is made harder by the fact that frustratingly little has been proven about the connections between hot flashes and certain foods and drinks.1 That nightly glass of wine is a prime example: While anecdotal experience suggests that alcohol can trigger or worsen hot flashes, studies have yet to empirically prove the connection.2
But there are many things we do know about alcohol use that can, along with personal observation, provide a useful roadmap for navigating drinking and vasomotor symptoms. SELF spoke with experts on what to know and what to look out for.
Know that alcohol use could potentially trigger hot flashes, and monitor your own experiences.
Laurie Jeffers, NP, DNP, co-director of the Center for Midlife Health and Menopause at NYU Langone Health, tells SELF that although there isn’t a clear link in the scientific literature between hot flashes and alcohol use, her patients often report noticing one in their own experience. “Anecdotally, and clinically, many, many women—most women—will report that they do notice an increase in their hot flashes with increased alcohol,” she says.
Melanie Marin, MD, director of the menopause program in the Raquel and Jaime Gilinski Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, tells SELF that things you may have been able to tolerate before, like having a glass of wine before dinner or coffee in the afternoon, may need to be adjusted once you start going through menopause. “And that doesn’t mean you can never have them,” she says. It’s all about weighing the risks and benefits. “If you want it, you can have it, but know that you might not feel as well.”
Notice whether different types of alcohol have different effects on your body.
Dr. Jeffers says that her patients often report experiencing an increase in hot flashes when they have increased amounts of a specific type of alcohol: red wine. While this evidence is still anecdotal, and more research is needed to understand alcohol’s link to menopausal symptoms, including hot flashes, it’s worth monitoring your reactions to different types of alcohol. (Scientists, meanwhile, believe they may have finally discovered what causes red wine headaches.3) Notice whether specific alcoholic drinks seem to trigger more frequent or more intense hot flashes, and consider changing your behavior accordingly.
Notice, too, how alcohol affects your mood.
You likely know that the hormonal fluctuations brought on by menopause can lead to mood swings. By further altering hormone levels, excessive alcohol consumption may exacerbate these mood swings.4 Alcohol use may also make people more susceptible to depression and anxiety—which people going through menopause are already at a heightened risk of developing, according to a recent review of nearly two dozen studies.5, 6