Expert: Joanne - 11/17/2007

Question
I am a little bit anorexic... By a little bit, I mean it's never been serious, I have lost a fair bit of wieght, but I'm still around the middle of what is classed as a healthy weight for my height, and my weight has now been stable for a couple of months. However, my periods have stopped. It's not really possible that I'm pregnant, but I'm going to get a test just to be sure... But... Could it be down to my eating??? I thought that only severe cases resulted in loss of periods???

Answer
Lowri

Sometimes people can find that when they lose weight, even if they don't fall into an underweight category, the physical stress that it can put on the body can be enough to stop your periods.  Stress itself can affect your periods!  Periods are controlled by hormones, and any imbalance in these can cause problems!

I would do your pregnancy test just to be sure, but then I think it would be worth while going to your Dr and tell them what it going on and have them test hormones levels, etc in order to make sure that there isn't anything else going on that could cause this.

It is important to have this checked out as a loss of periods can cause problems with your bones in the future.  One of the hormones responsible for menstruation is also responsible for stopping your bones being broken down.  Your bones contain cells that build new bone, and cells which break down old.  Oestrogen helps stop the cells temporarily that break down the bone, meaning that it is being built up instead.  During times when this hormone is absent, which is when you have no period either, there is nothing slowing down the break down of bone.  This may not have a huge effect on you now, and I don't want to scare you, but this can make you more vulnerable to developing a condition known as osteoporosis in later life.  This is basically a condition in which your bones a quite porous and can break quite easily compared to 'normal' bone.  

So it is important to sort out any problems that you are having with your periods now, so that you can build up bone now.  After menopause, this hormone is no longer produced, and this has a risk of osteoporosis associated with it, but s avoidable if you have built up strong enough bone in earlier life!

Holly