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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Younger women who are thrust into menopause because of breast cancer treatment may get some relief from talk therapy and regular exercise, a new study from the Netherlands suggests.

Symptoms including hot flashes and vaginal dryness often come on gradually for women who go through natural menopause, as the body's production of hormones slowly dwindles.

But that's not often the case for women who are diagnosed with breast cancer before menopause and treated with chemotherapy and other potent drugs.

"Oftentimes with women with breast cancer who experience treatment-induced menopause, the symptoms are much more severe than in natural menopause," said Neil Aaronson from The Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, who worked on the study.

What's more, those women shouldn't take replacement hormones - an effective but controversial treatment for menopause-related symptoms - because they can put them at risk of a cancer recurrence.

For the new study, Aaronson and his colleagues randomly assigned 422 women with breast cancer and treatment-induced menopause to one of four groups.

One group went to six weekly therapy sessions, another consulted with physiotherapists and started tailored exercise programs, a third did both therapy and exercise and the final group was put on a waitlist.

The type of group treatment, known as cognitive behavioral therapy, included relaxation exercises and addressed symptoms as well as body image and sexuality issues.

Six months later, women in the talk therapy, exercise and combined groups reported an improvement in treatment-related symptoms, each gaining about five points on a 73-point scale compared to less than two points among waitlisters.

Women who'd had therapy also said they were bothered less by their hot flashes and night sweats - but had them just as often, according to findings published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

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Therapy, exercise aid in chemo-related menopause

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