Survey study, 1992
Does eating starch every 3 hours help severe PMS symptoms?
Yes. 54% of women improved significantly and 19% had complete symptom relief with diet alone, suggesting frequent small meals with starch may help PMS.
What they did
Cross-sectional study of 84 women with severe PMS. Women kept food diaries for 7 days, then were advised to eat starch foods every 3 hours instead of their usual eating pattern.
What they found
Before the diet, women ate starch foods an average of 7 hours apart during the day and 13 hours overnight. After switching to 3-hourly starch meals, 54% improved, 20% improved further, and 19% needed no medication for complete relief.
What it means for you
Eating starch regularly might help PMS by keeping blood sugar stable. However, this was a small observational study without a control group, so improvement could come from other factors like attention or placebo effect.
84
Women studied
54%
Improved with diet
19%
Completely relieved with diet alone
About the study
- Original title
- Diet of women with severe premenstrual syndrome and the effect of changing to a three‐hourly starch diet
- Authors
- Katharina Dalton, Wendy M. Holton
- Journal
- Stress Medicine
- Year
- 1992
- Study design
- Survey study
- Participants
- 84
- What was tested
- Three-hourly starch-based diet
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.1002/smi.2460080109
Topics
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