New links have been found between the age of first menstrual period and a woman’s risk of early or premature menopause, researchers report today.
Early menopause is usually defined as 40 to 44 years of age, as the average age of natural menopause is 51 years. Menopause before the age of 40 is usually classified as premature menopause.
Women in both of these groups have an increased risk of early death and are more likely to suffer from chronic conditions in later life, including cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis.
An international team led by Professor Gita Mishra, of the University of Queensland, Australia, looked at a possible link with early age of first menstrual period, that is, at or before the age of 11.
They used figures on 51,450 postmenopausal women from nine observational studies in the UK, Scandinavia, Australia and Japan. Of these, 2% experienced premature menopause and 7.6% early menopause.
Women who had their first menstrual period at or before the age of 11 had a significant 80% raised risk of premature menopause and a 31% raised risk of early menopause.
Those in this group who also had no children were at five times the risk of premature menopause and double the risk of early menopause.
Details appear in Human Reproduction. The authors point out that most of the studies relied on retrospectively reported age at first period, "which may have led to some degree of recall bias".
They write: "Our findings support early monitoring of women with early menarche, especially those who have no children, for preventive health interventions aimed at mitigating the risk of adverse health outcomes associated with early menopause."
Mishra, G. D. et al. Early menarche, nulliparity and the risk for premature and early natural menopause. Human Reproduction 25 January 2017; doi: 10.1093/humrep/dew350
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