Talk:Menstrual cycle

References to women omitting girls
Women are constantly referred to in this and related articles; menstruation typically starts in early teenage years in girls. ? Iztwoz (talk) 11:57, 30 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't think this is an issue of concern. The article clearly says, "the first period (called menarche) occurs at around 12 years of age and continues for about 30–45 years." Graham Beards (talk) 12:06, 30 September 2022 (UTC)


 * In the first paragraph is "These cycles are concurrent and coordinated, normally last between 21 and 35 days in adult women" why leave out a large proportion of menstruating females?--Iztwoz (talk) 19:16, 30 September 2022 (UTC) Why 'adult' and why not just females?--Iztwoz (talk) 19:18, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * And are post-menopausal women not adults?--Iztwoz (talk) 19:20, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is an issue. The term "women" is used 33 times and 13 of these are in the citations. When the term is used in the body of the article, often the age range is given. If you have a source for the differences of the cycles in girls, we could include these. It would insult our readers to say "in adult women who are still menstruating" when the meaning of post-menopausal is so obvious. I would be interested to see if any  editors think "girls" is an issue. Graham Beards (talk) 21:41, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why the term "adult women" is used twice in the article - why not just "women"? I would have thought cycle length is on average the same, no matter if it's a menstruating teenager or an "adult woman" (perhaps different again during peri-menopause?). From a society point of view (or call it history), girls where officially women once they started menopause... Nowadays we don't think of them that way: we have girls pre menarche, then girls post menarche and then adult women. But biologically, the menstrual cycle is the same for a post menarche girl as for a woman, isn't it? In summary, I don't think we need to mention girls separate but I would prefer "women" instead of "adult women" here. - I've also seen the term "females" in publications to include women and girls in the one term. EMsmile (talk) 22:00, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for you valued comments. I have deleted the one occurrence of "adult women" and the one occurrence "adult woman". Stand alone "women" is redundant as the article starts off by saying "the female reproductive system". Graham Beards (talk) 09:46, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Basically, yes, the menstrual cycle is the same. It can be a bit more irregular for younger girls, especially those in their first year, but women is probably a better term. 172.4.66.98 (talk) 14:53, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Menstrual health
In the menstrual health section, it is written:

"There are common culturally communicated misbeliefs that the menstrual cycle affects women's moods, causes depression or irritability, or that menstruation is a painful, shameful or unclean experience. Often a woman's normal mood variation is falsely attributed to the menstrual cycle. Much of the research is weak, but there appears to be a very small increase in mood fluctuations during the luteal and menstrual phases, and a corresponding decrease during the rest of the cycle.[74]"

This paragraph is scientifically incorrect. Read this review articles, this and this. This issue was raised during FAC in Persian Wikipedia. Pereoptic Talk✉️  15:40, 12 April 2024 (UTC)


 * No. Those studies were on women with pre-existing psychiatric diagnoses. The cited study by Else-Quest N, Hyde JS (2021) is correct in this regard. Also I can't see the discussion you refer to here  Graham Beards (talk) 17:31, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Graham Beards: You can read the conversations here and after here.
 * In part of this article it is written:
 * "This cyclic experience may influence women’s mental health through a variety of mechanisms. For example, many women experience physical discomfort (e.g., dysmenorrhea, breast tenderness, joint pain5) around menstruation. This physical discomfort can be associated with increases in psychological distress and irritability, and decreased self-esteem.6 Many women additionally report increased interpersonal conflicts and reduced social engagement premenstrually and during menstruation7,8—which may contribute to depression and isolation.8 Negative affect is linked with increased impulsivity,9 substance use,10 and nonsuicidal self-injury.11 As such, it is unsurprising that systematic and meta-analytic reviews find exacerbations of psychiatric symptoms across the menstrual cycle (e.g., Carroll et al.12)."
 * Another articles also mentions mood swings [1 ] [2 ]. However, I'm not sure if it refers to normal women or those with underlying mental illnesses. Pereoptic  Talk✉️  06:18, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for this. Firstly you must stick to acceptable sources which none of these are with the possible exception of Handy et al. I think the issue you have had is essentially over mood swings. This is covered in our article where is says "there appears to be a very small increase in mood fluctuations during the luteal and menstrual phases, and a corresponding decrease during the rest of the cycle." Handy et al say only 5% of women are affected but even then they also admit to a sampling bias and add the caveat "Given the failure to include this information and the general lack of representation of racial and ethnic minority groups, the generalizability of these findings is an open question". So I can not accept your argument that what I have written is "scientifically incorrect". Graham Beards (talk) 06:54, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Graham Beards: Of course, English is not my first language and I may use some words incorrectly. I didn't mean this paragraph to be "scientifically incorrect", I meant that article by Handy et al was stated as straight fact. We have not covered the controversies surrounding this scientific issue in the text of the article As you said yourself, Handy admits that: "the generalizability of these findings is an open question" Pereoptic  Talk✉️  07:25, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * -This position is not a "cultural misconception" in any way, but it is a completely scientific matter about which there is debate and controversy. By the way, the number of researches that show the connection between the two is increasing. The mentioned sentence should be rewritten as follows: "There is a difference of opinion regarding the relationship between menstruation and mood changes" or "In recent years, the relationship between menstruation and mood changes has been discussed." Tisfoon.
 * Pereoptic Talk✉️  07:29, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I disagree. That's not an improvement. We don't base our articles on opinions, we use reliable sources and the second suggestion says nothing really. Graham Beards (talk) 07:54, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Graham Beards: difference of opinion base our articles, not just opinion. I don't know why you are reading my speech word for word. By disagreement, I mean the difference between scientific articles. Find out the meaning of my words, not sentence by sentence and word by word. When a review article admits that there are problems with my review, you should not write the research results in the text of the article without mentioning these problems. For example, it is better to write: "But still more research is needed in this field." Pereoptic  Talk✉️  08:23, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think you should read the past discussion on this here Talk:Menstrual cycle/Archive 4, where the wording was debated and agreed. Graham Beards (talk) 08:26, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

An examination of the studies that were included of women with pre-existing psychiatric diagnoses lends to a lack of confidence in the strength of the findings, which reinforces concern about the issues mentioned in the Limitations section and reiterated in the Conclusions and future directions section (limited data, varied definitions and assessment of menstrual cycle phases, lack of standardized assessment of symptoms, sampling biases, and "retrospective and self-reported assessments of the menstrual cycle are less accurate, which may obfuscate potential findings"). "Self-report" occurs 158 times (some duplicates) in the Table of 178 accepted studies, which makes me wonder if Graham might comment on the selection criteria, and whether this review should be used at all. Should there be consensus to use the review, would something like this work? Sandy Georgia (Talk)  13:42, 13 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi Sandy, I don't think we should use the study. This diagram shows how the authors only focussed on women with pre-existing psychiatric conditions. There are numerous conditions that are aggravated by hormonal changes but only a tiny percent of women experience this. I think we are in danger of creeping towards medicalizing a healthy physiological function, which, as you know,  was a big, big problem in earlier versions. Graham Beards (talk) 14:13, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * "only focussed on women" Which Only? I agree with Sandy Georgia, do menstrual cycles only happen to normal women? When talking about menstrual health, part of it includes women who have underlying mental illnesses, and it is good that these issues are also covered in the article. In addition to the issues I mentioned, the topic of underlying diseases has a very wide coverage in mental health articles.   Pereoptic  Talk✉️  16:25, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't know what you mean by "Which Only". Graham Beards (talk) 16:49, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think this is my grammar problem. :) Suppose I didn't write that sentence at all  Pereoptic  Talk✉️  16:58, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

This is from he Lead:

The menstrual cycle can cause some women to experience premenstrual syndrome with symptoms that may include tender breasts, and tiredness. More severe symptoms that affect daily living are classed as premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and are experienced by 3–8% of women. During the first few days of menstruation some women experience period pain that can spread from the abdomen to the back and upper thighs. The menstrual cycle can be modified by hormonal birth control.

I think it's sufficient. Graham Beards (talk) 16:57, 13 April 2024 (UTC)


 * But the text does not clearly mention mental health  Pereoptic  Talk✉️  17:01, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * OK. Let me summarise what I think the issues are:
 * You translated this article into Farsi. (And where is the acknowledgment ?)
 * You nominated it for FA in the Persian Wikipedia.
 * One (just one) reviewer, Tisfoon, said there wasn't enough on mood swings.
 * So you added this to the Persian version: "There is a difference of opinion about the basic and long-term effect of the menstrual cycle on mood and its relationship with mental disorders and its continuity and occurrence in each cycle. However, mood swings during the cycle (especially in the luteal phase and menstruation) are accepted among experts and may be accompanied by fluctuations.
 * This was sourced to an article on suicides.
 * Then you started the discussion here requesting a similar addition.
 * I disagreed saying the existing coverage was adequate.
 * You replied by saying "But the text does not clearly mention mental health ".
 * This is not needed in my view. And furthermore, I find it misogynistic when a normal, healthy physiological function in women is held to blame for mental diseases. Unless you can quote an WP:MEDRS source to support your claim that the menstrual cycle causes mental disease in otherwise healthy women, I think we should let the matter rest. Graham Beards (talk) 17:38, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * These ambiguities were raised in GA, but since these are still not resolved for me, I have raised these issues here. I did not come here to suggest that we add this text to the English article, I raised this issue to seek the scholarly opinions of English Wikipedia users about it. But I came across this sentence: "And besides, I find it misogynistic to blame a normal, healthy physiological function in women for mental illness." This sentence really surprised me.
 * Pereoptic Talk✉️  20:35, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * In that case, please see WP:NOTAFORUM: "...article talk pages exist solely to discuss how to improve articles; they are not for general discussion about the subject of the article." Graham Beards (talk) 05:56, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It's very, very clear that when I say "ambiguities," I mean the validity of the text in the menstrual health section. But unfortunately, you are dragging the discussion to the sidelines, first you describe the summary of my participation and goals, then you raise your personal beliefs and finally you sweep question under the carpet, I think it is better to wait for the third opinion. Pereoptic  Talk✉️  06:18, 14 April 2024 (UTC)



Summary of a cognitive changes
Changes to the brain have also been observed throughout the menstrual cycle [76] but do not translate into measurable changes in intellectual achievement – including academic performance, problem-solving, memory, and creativity.[77]

I don't think that this is a good summary of what [77] says.

Firstly, the review doesn't mention creativity even once. The studies cited focus mostly on verbal and spatial reasoning, memory, etc. I would not call this academic performance.

Secondly, from the Conclusion section in the paper:

"Studies examining the menstrual cycle in healthy women have been unable to show consistent associations between cognition and menstrual cycle phase."

"Regarding premenstrual disorders such as PMS and PMDD, although methodologically-sound studies are limited, current evidence suggests that there may be cognitive deficits in some aspects of executive functioning in those who are most symptomatic (women with PMDD)."

I think the following is a better summary of [77]:

"While studies have not consistently shown an association between cycle phases and performance in cognitive tasks related to memory or problem solving, current evidence suggests that women with PMDD might be affected in terms of executive functioning."

Note: I'm new to editing, feedback how to do things well appreciated! CyberMagpie (talk) 12:55, 8 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi, what do you mean by "executive functioning"? Graham Beards (talk) 13:06, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
 * This is how is it defined in [77]:
 * "Aside from traditionally sex dimorphic tasks, menstrual cycle studies have also considered executive functioning tasks. Executive function is an umbrella term, referring to higher order cognitive processes, such as the capacity to monitor, organize, think flexibly, and plan." CyberMagpie (talk) 13:13, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
 * That's rather vague. Graham Beards (talk) 14:19, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Plausibly! Do you have any suggestions how to proceed? Despite the summary being vague, I still think it better reflects what the paper actually says. Some possible next steps might be:
 * Trying to summarize the article in a more concrete way.
 * Removing the citation of the article.
 * Expanding the literature review and including more sources.
 * CyberMagpie (talk) 09:31, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
 * We need to fix the expression "in terms of executive functioning" and delete "current". Then I think your suggestion could be adopted. I have already deleted the word "creativity". Graham Beards (talk) 09:41, 11 May 2024 (UTC)