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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