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Menopausal women struggling with night sweats have been handed some tough-love advice: stop sitting around.

Sedentary lifestyles may be putting them at greater risk of hot flushes during the night, researchers say.

Many women going through menopause wake up to find their sheets soaking from night sweats – a distressing symptom that can disrupt sleep and cause brain fog during the day.

The US researchers measured night sweats in 77 women while looking at their daytime physical activity using wrist-worn exercise trackers.

For every three hours and 20 minutes spent being sedentary, such as sitting or lying down, they had one extra episode of night sweats on average.

Dr Sarah Witkowski, who led the study from Smith College in Massachusetts, said: 'As researchers, we want to reduce the difficulties many women have through mid-life, and try to make it a little better.

'It is very easy to sit for three hours at a time, particularly when working or watching television, but these results suggest women might want to take breaks where they get up and move around.'

However, she said more research would need to be done to prove the link.

The study, being presented today to the annual meeting of the North American Menopause Society, measured women's night sweats using two electrodes on their chest. 

The women, who were mostly post-menopausal or in the early stages of menopause, had up to nine episodes of night sweats in a night.

But the number was higher on average if they were more sedentary. 

It is unclear why exercise and night sweats may be linked, but menopause alters hormones, which might change the brain's regulation of body temperature. 

And when women's bodies heat up, their blood vessels, particularly those close to the surface of the skin, expand so heat can escape. 

But if women are more sedentary, their blood vessels may be in poorer condition, meaning they don't expand as well.

That could lead to more night sweats as a result of retaining too much heat.

It might also explain why women with worse hot flushes and night sweats have been found to be at greater risk of heart problems and strokes.

The latest study, which looked at women aged 45 to 55, the usual age for menopause, found no link between sedentary behaviour and daytime hot flushes. 

About one in 100 women experience menopause before they reach 40.