Licit Substance Use and Premenstrual Syndrome Symptom Severity in Female College Students.

Introduction: Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) affects the majority of women and is characterized by physical, behavioral, and mood symptoms, which can have a profound impact on quality of life. PMS symptoms have also been linked to licit substance use. This study examined the relationships between daily/problem use (DPU) of caffeine (Caf+), alcohol (Alc+), and tobacco (Cig+) and PMS symptomology in a sample of college women. Methods: Participants (N = 196) completed an anonymous one-time health survey. Demographic, PMS symptomatology, and DPU of licit substance variables were examined. Independent t-tests compared PMS symptom scores in women with and without Caf+, Cig+, and Alc+ use. One-way analysis of variances examined the associations between PMS symptom severity and number of DPU-positive substances. Results: PMS subscale severity (pain [F(2,190) = 4.47, p = 0.013], affective [F(2,192) = 8.21, p < 0.001], and water retention [F(2,191) = 13.37, p < 0.001]) and total PMS symptom severity [F(2,189) = 10.22, p < 0.001] showed a dose response effect, with the number of licit substances with DPU significantly associated with PMS symptom severity. Conclusions: This study findings provide important new information about the relationship between PMS symptoms and at-risk substance use. These are cross-sectional data, however, and affirm a need for longitudinal research to better understand the associations, with a focus on potential benefits of education and intervention.

An Economy of Illness: The Poetics of Women in Pain.

This essay examines the position of illness within a capitalist economy, exploring how labor, production, and consumption change through the bodily experiences of illness. Using contemporary poetry by Elizabeth Arnold and Anne Boyer, I suggest first that the experience of illness places women in an alternative economy, not unlike the familiar ways in which women are routinely devalued when their labor is under-appreciated or under(/un)compensated. I argue that being ill often challenges the productivity required by capitalism, and that as a response, experiences of illness play a role in the formation of an alternative economy. Within these new economic structures, affective experiences of pain and disgust-typically devalued in a capitalist economy-become foundational features of taste formation. The poets I examine here explore this complicated affect to suggest that experiences of pain can have important economic and affective effects.