Study links early periods and menopause to heart diseases

barasa velma

January 16, 2018 4:06 PM

Women that have their period before 12 and those that go through menopause before 47 are at higher risk of heart disease.

A recent study has found that women who get their periods at the age of 11 or those that enter menopause before the age of 47, have a higher risk of developing a heart disease or getting a stroke.

The study published on Tuesday, found that women who experienced miscarriages, still births, underwent hysterectomies or bear children at a young age experienced a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases later on in life.

How the research was conducted

A long term research, from 2006 to 2016, was done in Britain by monitoring and testing more than a quarter of a million women.

From the findings of the study, more than four fifths of the women studied had been pregnant while almost half of them already had two children. On average, these women started having their periods at 13 and their fist children at 26.

The women’s average age was 56 when the study commenced.

By 2016, two thirds of those studied had gone through menopause. Their average age was 50.

Women that began menstruating before the age of 12 had a higher risk of developing a cardiovascular disease as compared to women that were 13 or older when they began menstruating.

The chances of those that got menopause before the age of 47 was raised by 33 percent and for stroke by 42 percent.

Hysterectomies would raise a woman’s chance of heart disease by 20 percent and stillbirths by 6 percent.

These are not the first findings to find a link between reproductive factors and cardiovascular diseases.