--- title: Study: Antidepressants May Relieve Hot Flashes description: Menopausal or postmenopausal women may benefit from taking an antidepressant — not because they're depressed, but because the drug could help reduce the often insufferable... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7142797/study-antidepressants-may-relieve-hot-flashes/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2011-01-18T22:04:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-16T11:17:46.919Z article:section: Health og:title: Study: Antidepressants May Relieve Hot Flashes og:description: Menopausal or postmenopausal women may benefit from taking an antidepressant — not because they're depressed, but because the drug could help reduce the often insufferable... og:url: https://time.com/archive/7142797/study-antidepressants-may-relieve-hot-flashes/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt526fe7b5b847389b/698a94e0e6e84a13c72b93b0/lexaprocroppe.jpg?branch=production&width=307&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 307 og:image:height: 173 og:image:alt: Forest Laboratories antidepressant drug Lexapro is arranged og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Study: Antidepressants May Relieve Hot Flashes twitter:description: Menopausal or postmenopausal women may benefit from taking an antidepressant — not because they're depressed, but because the drug could help reduce the often insufferable... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt526fe7b5b847389b/698a94e0e6e84a13c72b93b0/lexaprocroppe.jpg?branch=production&width=307&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Health](/section/health/) # Study: Antidepressants May Relieve Hot Flashes > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=256a2008-09d6-4881-9756-f9968684e691&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Jan 18, 2011 10:04 PM UTC  Forest Laboratories antidepressant drug Lexapro is arranged in a Cambridge, Massachusetts pharmacy Tuesday, October 17, 2006\. Forest Laboratories Inc. said fiscal second-quarter profit increased 18 percent on demand for its two biggest-selling medicines, Lexapro antidepressant and Namenda for Alzheimer's disease. Photographer: JB Reed/Bloomberg News. Forest Laboratories antidepressant drug Lexapro is arranged in a Cambridge, Massachusetts pharmacy Tuesday, October 17, 2006\. Forest Laboratories Inc. said fiscal second-quarter profit increased 18 percent on demand for its two biggest-selling medicines, Lexapro antidepressant and Namenda for Alzheimer's disease. Photographer: JB Reed/Bloomberg News. BLOOMBERG NEWS by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Jan 18, 2011 10:04 PM UTC Menopausal or postmenopausal women may benefit from taking an antidepressant — not because they’re depressed, but because the drug could help reduce the often insufferable hot flashes that characterize menopause, according to new research.more According to the study of 205 women who were just beginning menopause or were postmenopausal, those who took the antidepressant Lexapro (escitalopram), a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), had significantly fewer and less severe hot flashes than women who got a placebo pill. (**More on Time.com:** [Study: More Evidence for the Harms of Hormone Replacement Therapy](http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/20/study-more-evidence-for-the-harms-of-hormone-replacement-therapy/)) Many women currently have no effective long-term treatment for hot flashes — the sudden feeling of intolerable heat that flares up without notice. Doctors had long prescribed hormone therapy as the go-to treatment for menopausal symptoms, but largely stopped doing so in 2002, when the results of the large, federally funded Women’s Health Initiative showed that the risks of hormone treatment — including heart disease and breast cancer risk — outstripped its benefits. Last year, [further results](http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/20/study-more-evidence-for-the-harms-of-hormone-replacement-therapy/) from the same trial showed that women who took hormone therapy were not only more likely to develop breast cancer than women who didn’t take hormones, but were also more likely to die from the disease. For the new study, published Tuesday in the _Journal of the American Medical Association_ (_JAMA_), researchers lead by Dr. Ellen W. Freeman of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine gave 10 to 20 mg/d doses of Lexapro or placebo to healthy women in an eight-week clinical trial. The women were asked to record the frequency and severity of their hot flashes in daily diaries, which researchers evaluated at weeks 4 and 8\. (**More on Time.com:** [Why Obesity May Not Raise Breast Cancer Risk in Mexican Americans](http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/08/obesity-may-not-contribute-to-breast-cancer-among-mexican-americans/)) On average, women reported suffering 9.8 hot flashes per day at the beginning of the study. By week 8, the group taking Lexapro reported having 5.26 hot flashes per day — a 47% reduction, compared with the start of the study. Women in the placebo group had reduced their hot flashes by 33%, to an average 6.43 per day. The Lexapro group also reported less severe hot flashes compared with the placebo group. The difference in hot-flash frequency between the two groups was modest — and the overall benefit of Lexapro was small, when compared with the 80% or so reduction in hot flashes seen in trials of hormone therapy — but the study’s authors say that it was still meaningful for study participants. “Our findings suggest that among healthy women, 10 to 20 mg/d of escitalopram provides a nonhormonal, off-label option that is effective and well-tolerated in the management of menopausal hot flashes,” wrote the authors. “Further studies are needed to directly compare the relative efficacy of SSRIs and SNRIs \[serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors\] with hormone therapy in the treatment of menopause-related hot flashes.” (**More on Time.com:**[ Are You Fertile? Don’t Rely on a Drug-Store Fertility Test to Tell You](http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/28/are-you-fertile-dont-rely-on-a-drug-store-fertility-test-to-tell-you/)) For more, check out the video, below, produced by _JAMA_ on the study: \[vodpod id=Video.5372134&w=425&h=350&fv=file%3D%2FJAMA\_3773%2FJAMA3773\_vnr\_large.flv%26amp%3Bstreamer%3Drtmp%3A%2F%2Ffss26.streamhoster.com%2Fvnr%26amp%3Bimage%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.digitalnewsrelease.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2FJAMA3773\_vnr\_still.jpg%26amp%3Btype%3Drtmp%26amp%3Bwidth%3D420%26amp%3Bheight%3D280%26amp%3Bautostart%3Dfalse\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7142797/study-antidepressants-may-relieve-hot-flashes/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7142797/study-antidepressants-may-relieve-hot-flashes/"},"headline":"Study: Antidepressants May Relieve Hot Flashes","datePublished":"2011-01-18T22:04:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-16T11:17:46.919Z","description":"Menopausal or postmenopausal women may benefit from taking an antidepressant — not because they're depressed, but because the drug could help reduce the often insufferable...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7142797/study-antidepressants-may-relieve-hot-flashes/","keywords":["menopause","ssris"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt526fe7b5b847389b/698a94e0e6e84a13c72b93b0/lexaprocroppe.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt526fe7b5b847389b/698a94e0e6e84a13c72b93b0/lexaprocroppe.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Forest Laboratories antidepressant drug Lexapro is arranged","caption":"Forest Laboratories antidepressant drug Lexapro is arranged","creditText":"BLOOMBERG NEWS","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7142797/study-antidepressants-may-relieve-hot-flashes/","name":"Study: Antidepressants May Relieve Hot Flashes"}}]}] ```