Smoking linked to earlier menopause: study
Women who smoke may hit menopause about a year earlier than those who don’t light up, according to a study that also notes an earlier menopause may influence the risk of getting bone and heart diseases.
The study, which was carried in the journal Menopause, pooled data from several previous studies that included about 6,000 women in the United States, Poland, Turkey and Iran.
Non-smokers hit menopause between age 46 and 51, on average. But in all but two of the studies, smokers were younger when they hit menopause, between 43 and 50 overall.
During menopause, a woman’s ovaries stop producing eggs and she can no longer get pregnant.
“Our results give further evidence that smoking is significantly associated with earlier (age at menopause) and provide yet another justification for women to avoid this habit,” wrote study author Volodymyr Dvornyk, from the University of Hong Kong.
Dvornyk and his colleagues also analysed five other studies that used a cut-off age of 50 or 51 to group women into “early” and “late” menopause. Out of more than 43,000 women in that analysis, women who smoked were 43 percent more likely than nonsmokers to have early menopause.
Both early and late menopause have been linked to health risks. Women who hit menopause late, for instance, are thought to be at higher risk of breast cancer because one risk factor for the disease is more time exposed to estrogen.
“General consensus is that earlier menopause is likely to be associated with the larger number and higher risk of postmenopausal health problems, such as osteoporosis, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, obesity, Alzheimer’s disease, and others,” Dvornyk told Reuters Health in an email.
Smoking and Menopause
Cigarette smoking can affect the timing of the onset of menopause, the intensity of the symptoms of menopause, and the incidence of osteoporosis after menopause. Women who smoke need to recognize these risks and do their best to kick the habit.
Smoking’s Effect on the Onset of Menopause
Menopause occurs when the ovaries cease to produce estrogen. A gene, Bax, and a genetic receptor, Ahr, are responsible for the onset of menopause when they become activated.
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have discovered that the chemicals in smoking directly activate these genetic components, creating what they call a “specific pathway” to killing ovarian cells.
It has been found that women who smoke more than ten cigarettes a day are 40 percent more likely to go into menopause early than nonsmokers.
Generally, women who smoke will enter menopause one to two years earlier. Early menopause has been seen to lead to heart disease, strokes, and osteoporosis; therefore, if a woman can prevent its early onset by stopping smoking, she needs to do so.
Smoking’s Effect on the Symptoms of Menopause
Many women suffer from the symptoms of menopause, including hot flashes and difficulty sleeping. Women who smoke will likely experience these symptoms to a greater degree, thus making menopause a more unpleasant and disruptive process.
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Lisa B. Freedman, MD
Family Practice Medicine
Narberth, PA
Overall, he added, early menopause is also thought to slightly raise a woman’s risk of death in the years following.
There are two theories for why smoking might mean earlier menopause, said Jennie Kline, an epidemiologist from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York.
Smoking make have an effect on how women’s bodies make, or get rid of, estrogen. Alternatively, some researchers believe certain components of cigarette smoke might kill eggs, added Kline, who was not involved in the study.
Dvornyk’s team did not have information on how long women had been smoking or how many cigarettes they smoked each day, so his team could not determine how either of those factors may have affected age at menopause.
For that reason, and a lack of data on other health and lifestyle factors linked to menopause, the analysis may not be enough to resolve lingering questions on the link between smoking and menopause, they said.
Alcohol, weight and whether or not women have given birth may each also play a role in when they hit menopause, but the evidence for everything other than smoking has been mixed, Kline said.
It is also possible that the same factors that influence age at menopause may determine whether women have trouble with infertility or not, or how late they can get pregnant.
Still, Kline said, “There are way better reasons to stop smoking than worrying about menopause”, such as reducing the risk of heart disease and lung cancer.
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SOURCE: http://url.health.am/482/