According to researchers, when menopause and early menopause begin in women before the age of fifty, this increasesRisk of illnesses. They are almost three times more likely to develop multiple chronic medical problems by age 60 than women who have gone through climacteric at age 50 or 51. These are the results of a study of 5107 Australian women who were part of a research of a total of 11258 respondents aged 45-50 in 1996.
Premature menopause and health risks
Life expectancy for women in high-income countries is now more than 80 years. For this reason, they spend a third of their lives after menopause. Scientists therefore link premature menopause to a number of individual medical problems later in life. These would be forExample of cardiovascular diseasesand diabetes. However, there is little information about whether there is also a connection between the timing of natural menopause and the development of multiple diseases, which they call multimorbidity.
Researchers from the Center for Longitudinal and Life Course Research at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, used data on women who participated in the Australian Prospective Longitudinal Analysis of Women's Health between 1946 and 1951. Then they answered questionnaires every three years until 2016. The women reported whether they had experienced any of 11 health problems in the last three years. These included diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, osteoporosis, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, depression, anxiety and breast cancer. The researchers assumed multimorbidity if the test subjects had two or more of these diseases.
The scientists defined the age of a woman at natural menopause as at least 12 months without monthly bleeding. This was not the result of a surgical procedure such as ovary removal or hysterectomy. During the 20-year follow-up period, 2.3% of women had premature menopause and 55% developed multimorbidity. Compared to women in whom menopause occurred at age 50-51, early climacteric at age 60 was more likely to cause multimorbidity. This risk then increases twice as high and three times as high after the age of 60.
Research results and risk factors
This is the first study to examine the association between menopause and the development of multimorbidity in a large group of women with long-term, prospective follow-up.
“Our findings suggest that health professionals should consider comprehensive screening and assessment of risk factors when treating women in natural premature menopause to assess the risk of multimorbidity,” said Prof. Mishra. “The results also highlight that multimorbidity should be considered a clinical and public health priority. This is especially true as policymakers consider how to control and prevent chronic health problems in women.”
The study does not show that early menopause leads to the development of multimorbidity, only that there is a connection to it. One limitation of the results, however, is that the researchers relied on women's self-reported information.
Researchers are currently investigating which risk factors they might target. This allows doctors to prevent or slow the development of health problems in women with early menopause. These include improving diet and exercise, not smoking, controlling body weight and promoting mental activity. Regular early detection of cancer and other medical problems related to the reproductive system are also included.
You can do the study inHuman Reproductionread.
