Night sweats and hot flashes are a pretty standard part of menopause, but a new study has shed some light on the fact that they might actually last years longer than previously thought.

Many people have believed that the intense periods of menopause are relatively short lived, but new research published in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal is saying otherwise.

The average age for the onset of menopause is 51 years in the United States, and it was previously thought that symptoms lasted around six months to to two years. Now it has become clear that symptoms can last closer to seven and a half years for around half of women.

Up to 80 percent of all women have symptoms, many of which can be severe. Hispanic and black women are even more likely to see their symptoms last longer, while Chinese and Japanese women had the shortest duration of symptoms on average.

JoAnn Manson, the chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston spoke out about the findings.

“The duration of the symptoms is much longer than traditionally thought. Many women have moderate-to-severe hot flashes, night sweats that interrupt sleep and adversely affect their ability to function and work and their social life. This is a real problem for many women,” she said.

The study also found that how long the symptoms lasted correlated with when they came on. If the symptoms started while the women were still menstruating, the women were more likely to have symptoms up to 11 years. If the symptoms did not come on until after the women were done menstruating, their average was more like three and a half years.

Based on these finding, the researchers will continue to follow the women in the study to try and find out more about why this happens. The hope that is if they can determine why it does, than they might be able to come up with more appropriate ways to treat it and ease some suffering.