Early Menopause Increases Risk of Heart Failure Especially for Smokers

Early menopause at ages 40-45 might increase risk of heart failure, a new study reveals.

The latest study documented in the Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society, reveals a strong association between early menopause and heart diseases. The risk is higher if the woman has a history of smoking. 

Studies conducted in the past have also revealed an association between early  menopause and heart disease mostly atherosclerotic heart disease. But the current study led by researchers at the Karolinska Institute of Stockholm, Sweden, reveals how early menopause triggers risk of heart failure.

This long-term study included over 22,000 postmenopausal women. The data was taken from the Swedish National Patient Register that has data on all hospitalizations and outpatient diagnoses; Sweden's Cause of Death Register and the Health Surveys of over 90,000 women in the Swedish Mammography Cohort.

On analyzing the data the researchers noticed that women who sail into menopause naturally at an early age had 40 percent higher risk of heart failure than those who reached menopause at the usual age of 50-54.

The risk of heart failure was 2 percent less with every one-year increase in age at menopause.

Compared to the non-smokers, smokers are more likely to go through menopause one year earlier.  Despite this fact the researchers failed to answer the tie between heart failure and premature menopause, because those who smoked earlier in lives and quit also had the same increased risk of heart failure with early menopause.

"Menopause, early or late, is always a good time to take more steps to reduce heart disease risk through exercise, a healthy diet, weight loss, and quitting smoking," says NAMS Executive Director Margery Gass, MD.  "This thought-provoking study should encourage more research to find out how early menopause and heart failure are linked. Do the factors that cause heart failure also cause ovarian failure?"