Women
diagnosed with type 1 diabetes before age 30 years or type 2 diabetes at age 30
to 39 years are more likely to reach menopause earlier than women without
diabetes, according to study results.
Data
were presented at the North American Menopause Society annual meeting.
Women diagnosed with
type 1 or type 2 diabetes at a younger age have a higher risk for early age at
natural menopause. Data were derived from Mehra V, et al. S-6. Presented at:
North American Menopause Society Annual Meeting; Oct. 12-15, 2022; Atlanta.
“With more females being diagnosed with diabetes at
younger ages, clinicians need to take into account the long-term health
implications this will have on their reproductive health, including age at
natural menopause,” Vrati M. Mehra, MSc, an MD candidate at the University of
Toronto Temerty Faculty of Medicine, told Healio.
Mehra
and colleagues analyzed baseline data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on
Aging. The study included 11,436 women diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, type 2
diabetes or gestational diabetes prior to menopause. Age at natural menopause
was the primary outcome of the analysis. Researchers also calculated the median
age at natural menopause for each diabetes type.
The
cohort’s median age at natural menopause was 52 years. After adjusting for
ethnicity, education, smoking, premenopausal factors and other covariates,
women diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at younger than 30 years (adjusted HR =
1.55; 95% CI, 1.05-2.29) and those diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at age 30 to
39 years (aHR = 1.82; 95% CI, 1.12-2.95) were more likely to have younger age
at natural menopause than women with no diabetes. Mehra said the association
between type 2 diabetes and age at natural menopause was surprising.
“Based on previous studies, there was some indication that
women with type 1 diabetes may be the ones to have earlier menopause and women
with type 2 diabetes have later menopause because type 2 diabetes is traditionally
diagnosed in older ages,” Mehra said. “As such, we weren’t expecting an earlier
diagnosis of type 2 diabetes to be significantly related to age at natural
menopause.”
There
was no association found between gestational diabetes and age at natural menopause.
Women diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at older than 50 years were more likely to
have later age at natural menopause than women with no diabetes (aHR = 0.39;
95% CI, 0.27-0.56).
“We would recommend that clinicians inform their young
patients with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes of this potential association
between early diagnosis of diabetes and age at natural menopause and be ready
to support their patients in this transition,” Mehra said. “We also don’t know
how premenopausal diabetes impacts women’s experience of menopausal symptoms,
such as vasomotor symptoms, but we are all learning just how serious those
symptoms can be, so we would recommend paying closer attention to your
patients’ history of diabetes and supporting them in this transition. I also
must stress that we need more public health support with primary prevention of
diabetes. We must do our best to curb the growing epidemic of diabetes among
younger individuals.”
Mehra
said more research is needed to better understand the mechanisms behind
diabetes status and age at natural menopause, and to confirm the impact of
long-standing diabetes and history of gestational diabetes on reproductive
health.
Source: Healio