Saturday, August 26, 2017

Early Menopause Linked to Early Menstruation

The classical medical theories claim that the age of menarche (the first occurrence of menstruation) should NOT be considered as a meaningful factor for the age of menopause prediction. However, in the recent study of women having menarche before the age of 11 and women who had never been pregnant (called nulliparity), were found to be at a five-fold increased risk for premature menopause and two-fold risk for early menopause, compared with women with menarche after age 12 who had given birth to two or more children.

Premature menopause and early menopause are of concern in terms of higher risks for developing the following chronic diseases:
·         Osteoporosis
·         Heart disease
·         Diabetes
·         Neurologic conditions including memory loss and Parkinson’s
·         Depression and anxiety
·         Psycho-sexual problem
·         Dry eyes



Girls who start menstruating at 11 or younger are at an increased risk of early or premature menopause, claims a new study, adding that the risk increases if they do not bear children.

Girls who start menstruating at 11 or younger are at an increased risk of early or premature menopause, claims a new study, adding that the risk increases if they do not bear children.

The study, which is published in Human Reproduction, indicates that the risk of premature or early menopause in women who have early periods increases five-fold and two-fold respectively when compared to women who had their first period aged 12 or older and those with two or more children.



“If the findings from our study were incorporated into clinical guidelines for advising childless women from around the age of 35 years who had their first period aged 11 or younger, clinicians could gain valuable time to prepare these women for the possibility of premature or early menopause,” said lead researcher Gita Mishra from Queensland in Australia.

“It provides an opportunity for clinicians to include women’s reproductive history alongside other lifestyle factors, such as smoking, when assessing the risk of early menopause and enables them to focus health messages more effectively both earlier in life and for women at most risk. In addition, they could consider early strategies for preventing and detecting chronic conditions that are linked to earlier menopause, such as heart disease,” Mishra added.

The study looked at 51,450 women among which most of them were born before 1960, with two-thirds born between 1930 and 1949.

The results suggest that women who started their menstrual periods aged 11 or younger had an 80 percent higher risk of experiencing a natural menopause before the age of 40 and a 30 percent higher risk of menopause between the ages of 40-44, when compared with women whose first period occurred between the ages of 12 and 13.

Researchers also found that in the women who got their first period at age 11 or younger, those who hadn't had children were almost twice as likely to experience premature menopause than those who had one, two or more children. This could be because women remained childless due to ovarian problems that then lead to early menopause, but it's not clear from this study.



In this study, only 12 percent of the women remained childless and it is possible that they may have remained childless due to ovarian problems, which may or may not have been detected and which might also be implicated in the early onset of menopause, the researchers concluded.

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