Psychological symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) - Can dietary supplements reduce the severity of symptoms?

Background: Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) is one of the most common disorders of women during their reproductive years that affect their daily activities and productivity.

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of protein and carbohydrate supplements on severity of PMS

Design: Crossover Clinical Trial

Methods: Two hundred college students (age 18-23 with BMI 19-26 Kg/m2), who reported different level of PMS in our primary survey of 500 female college students, were entered to this study. Seventy six of them met the study inclusion criteria and completed the course of intervention. Participants were divided to three groups. Based on cross over design, all groups had three types of interventions at different time and each month for three months, they added assigned dietary supplement/food to their regular daily diet for a week before starting their period. Intervention arms:1) Carbohydrate food group: adding 210 kcal carbohydrate in form of consumption of Juice, honey and date, 2) Carbohydrate supplement group: adding 50 gram carbohydrate supplement powder with 205 kcal, 3) Protein supplement group: adding 50 gram protein supplement powder with 205 kcal. The Premenstrual Daily Symptom Diary (PDSD) was used to measure the severity of psychological, behavioral and physical symptoms in scale of 1-4. The t test and repeated measure ANOVA were used to determine the significant differences among the intervention groups in different categories of symptoms.

Results: the severity of all types of symptoms declined after all three intervention groups (p<.001). However using carbohydrate supplement powder could show the most difference in severity of PMS after intervention (F=36.75, P< .001). This decrease was most prominent in declining psychological symptom (F=28.92, p< .001) specifically in the level of irritability and tension, then behavioral symptoms (F= 27.4, p< .001) most improvement in difficulty concentrating. Spearman tests in carbohydrate supplement group also revealed that there were positive and significant correlation between effect of carbohydrate consumption and reducing PMS symptoms (r=.83, p<.001). It means adding carbohydrate supplements could reduce more symptoms in sever PMS.

Conclusion: Consumption of carbohydrate supplement powder might be useful in patients who suffer form different level of PMS and can improve moderate to sever psychological and behavioral symptoms of PMS.