Alternative treatment for hot flashes

Hot flashes (also called hot flushes) are one of the most common, bothersome, and distressing symptoms that women undergo during menopause. These flashes are a vasomotor symptom that significantly deteriorates a woman's quality of life because they can cause chills, night sweats, palpitation, as well as sleep disturbance and insomnia, and may persist for years. One report showed that in excess of half of women living in the USA experienced hot flashes during their menopausal transition, and one-third reported symptoms persisting more than 10 years after menopause, suggesting that many postmenopausal women need help to minimize the symptom impact of their hot flashes. Clinical practices are increasingly confronted with a variety of medical challenges that directly impact a woman's natural menopausal transition. Such challenges include oophorectomy due to various diseases such as endometrial cancer, breast cancer treatment by endocrine therapies (e.g., aromatase inhibitors, gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist, and tamoxifen), endocrine manipulations, and chemotherapy with a resultant premature ovarian failure; all of these treatments are increasingly found in clinical practice because the incidence and/or prevalence of breast cancer has expanded significantly worldwide. Endocrine manipulations are especially important for the management of breast cancer in young (premenopausal) women. More than two-thirds of breast cancer patients undergoing the various kinds of endocrine manipulations will have their treatments complicated with differing degrees of vasomotor symptoms, including hot flashes, a troublesome side effect that impacts patient adherence to treatment. When patients fail to adhere to endocrine therapy, this subsequently contributes to worse prognosis for these premenopausal patients. The general consensus is that adequate relief of vasomotor symptoms, such as hot flashes, is of paramount importance. There is no doubt that hormonal therapy, especially estrogen therapy, is the most effective therapy for all menopauserelated vasomotor symptoms, including hot flashes. However, because of the strong evidence of risky hormones, especially the regimen of combined estrogen and progesterone, the use of hormonal therapy is not appropriate as first-line therapy. In fact, only a small fraction of women