Originally published January 2 2006
Early death may sometimes be signaled by early arrival of menopause
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Researchers at the American Cancer Society have found, after studying 68,000 women, that those who experience menopause in their forties have a slightly higher risk of premature death than those women who undergo menopause later in life.
Women who go through menopause in their early 40s may have a slightly higher risk of death later in life compared with their peers, a large U.S. study suggests.
The risk stems mainly from higher rates of death from heart disease, respiratory illnesses and kidney dysfunction after the age of 75, researchers at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta found.
However, one of the study authors told Reuters Health, the risk associated with earlier menopause is only "modest," and many other, controllable factors are involved in a woman's health and longevity.
The study results, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, are based on data from more than 68,000 U.S. women followed for 20 years.
Overall, the researchers found, women who went through menopause between the ages of 40 and 44 had a 4-percent higher risk of death from any cause compared with those who had their last menstrual period in their early 50s.
Further analysis showed that the link was limited to women age 75 or older -- apparently because, at younger ages, women with an earlier menopause had lower rates of death from breast and ovarian cancers.
This, Rodriguez noted in an interview, is in line with what experts believe about the protective effect of estrogen on the heart and blood vessels.
The longer a woman menstruates, the greater her exposure to estrogen and the greater the cardiovascular benefit.
On the other hand, lower lifetime estrogen exposure is thought to lower the risk of breast and ovarian cancers -- another relationship supported by this study.
Estrogen loss after menopause often leads to osteoporosis, and women who sustain bone fractures are at risk of complications such as pneumonia and urinary tract infections, Rodriguez explained.
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