Progesterone plays a major role in PMS (premenstrual syndrome). PMS and its many-fold symptoms are thought to be attributed in part, to progesterone, or more specifically, the sensitivity of some women's body's to changes in the level of progesterone production during the final stages of the menstrual cycle.
Progesterone is a major female sex hormone produced by the ovaries not only during PMS, but during the final two weeks of the menstrual cycle (the luteal or secretory phase). Current theory is that PMS is largely the body's response to the decline in progesterone levels that occur prior to menstruation.
The primary role of progesterone is to prepare the uterus to accept a fertilized egg, but both estrogen and progesterone hormones also affect women's moods, particularly through their ability to regulate the release of endorphins, hormones that regulate pleasure and pain responses and are therefore key in PMS.
New research shows that women who suffer from severe PMS have abnormal progesterone-related responses to both stress and pain. Whereas healthy women respond to stress during the second half of their monthly cycles by producing more allopregnanolone, a hormone metabolite of progesterone, those with severe PMS or PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder) produce much less of this substance when stressed. Women with severe PMS or PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder) are also more sensitive to pain than other women and have lower circulating levels of beta-endorphins, the body's natural pain-killers and 'feel good' chemicals. Beta-endorphin production is also regulated by progesterone.
