Early menopause raises the risk of Type 2 diabetes

Early menopause raises the risk of Type 2 diabetes

Women who undergo the menopause early in life are at greater risk of developing type two diabetes, research suggests.

Those who start the menopause before the age of 40 are four times more likely to develop the condition than women who undergo the change after the age of 55, scientists discovered.

The research, led by Erasmus University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, suggests oestrogen hormones protect the body against diabetes.

Women who started the menopause before 40 were almost four times more likely to develop diabetes than those who started it after 55, researchers found

The menopause, which occurs on average at the age of 51, happens when the body stops naturally producing oestrogen and other sex hormones.

But about one in ten women in Britain start the menopause before the age of 45, one in 100 before they are 40, and one in 1,000 before they are 30.

The researchers tracked more than 3,600 postmenopausal women, examining them every three to five years for a decade.

During that period 348 women developed type two diabetes.

The researchers, whose results are published in the Diabetologia medical journal, found for every advancing year in age that a woman underwent the menopause, her chance of developi ng type two diabetes reduced by 4 per cent.

Compared with women who experienced a late menopause - at the age of 55 or later â€" those who started the menopause before the age of 40 were almost four times more likely to have developed diabetes.

Those who underwent the menopause between the ages of 40 and 44 years were 2.4 times more likely to develop diabetes, and those with menopause at 45 to 55 were 1.6 times more likely to get the condition.

Previous research by the same team found women who reach the menopause early are also at greater risk of heart disease.

They think this was because women who reach the menopause later are exposed to oestrogen for longer, and therefore have a more years of protection against heart disease.

They said this might also apply to diabetes.

Researchers say this could be because oestrogen, which is not produced naturally by the body after the menopause, helps to prevent against Type 2 diabetes

But there is a chance an early menopause might indicate a deeper problem - a defective DNA repair system - which might simply also lead to diabetes.

The authors wrote: ‘Our findings might suggest that the risk of diabetes related to menopause is already there before menopause begins.

‘This could explain why other risk factors for diabetes do not explain the link between menopause and type two diabetes â€" early menopause is an independent marker for diabetes, indicating that something else is the driving force behind this observation, possibly defective DNA repair and maintenance.

‘Future studies should explore epigenetic marks related to menopause onset an d whether epigenetic signatures can explain the association.’

An estimated 1.9million women in Britain are going through the menopause at any one time.

Some 80 per cent of these women are thought to experience symptoms, which typically last for about four years, including depression, hot flushes, headaches and night sweats.

Women who never have children have double the risk of suffering early menopause.

Having an early menopause is known to increase the risk of other forms of poor health in later life, including strokes and osteoporosis.