The Effects of Early Menopause on Your Health
Menopause
is unpleasant. While the average age at which the majority of women
experience the hot flashes, mood swings, night sweats, and sleep
problems is 51, there is the possibility of experiencing this change
much sooner. Margery Gass, MD, executive director of the North American
Menopause Society states that "there's a very wide range for normal age
of menopause, but it's considered 'early' when it occurs before 40."
Most women who go through early menopause know it's coming: radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and an oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries) are all common causes. However, it can also be down to lifestyle, environmental, and genetic factors. Although only 1% of women experience their menopause before the age of 40, the factors behind an early change can also affect the risk for a handful of diseases and illnesses.
Below are 7 things that early menopause can mean for your health:
Most women who go through early menopause know it's coming: radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and an oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries) are all common causes. However, it can also be down to lifestyle, environmental, and genetic factors. Although only 1% of women experience their menopause before the age of 40, the factors behind an early change can also affect the risk for a handful of diseases and illnesses.
Below are 7 things that early menopause can mean for your health:
1. You Have a Lower Risk of Breast and Ovarian Cancer
Let's
start off with the good news: "Women with higher circulating levels of
estrogen have a higher risk of developing breast cancer, so those who
hit menopause earlier actually have a lower risk of breast cancer than
women who reach menopause later," says Elizabeth Bertone-Johnstone, an
associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts.
This is similar for ovarian cancer, which is directly linked to your
number of ovulations. Therefore, the fewer ovulations you have, the
lower your risk of being diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
2. You're Aging Faster
Now we have to move on to the
darker facts of early menopause. Telomeres are small structures that
protect DNA from damage, and their length can give a good indication of
biological age (the shorter they are, the more advanced the aging).
Women who go through menopause early experience shortened telomeres and
damaged genetic structures sooner than others.
Every
woman is born with a set amount of eggs, and one of the most widely
accepted menopause mechanisms is that changes start to occur once the
body has exhausted its egg stores. How does this connect to telomeres?
Well, research has found that 25-45-year-old women with
lower-than-average egg counts for their age (and therefore are closer to
reaching menopause) had shorter ones, indicating accelerated aging.
3. You May Have Been Exposed to Toxins
Women
whose blood and urine test positive for high concentrations of
chemicals found in plastics, personal-care products, common household
items, and the environment hit menopause 2-4 years earlier than women
with lower levels of these chemicals. A lot of these toxins are
uncontrollable - they can be found in soil, water, and air - but
researchers also point to chemicals that come from microwaving food in
plastic containers and synthetic ingredients in cosmetics, such as
phthalates.
In
fact, tests that were conducted by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics in
2002 found that 72% of popular cosmetics tested, including deodorants
and shampoos, contained harmful phthalates. Regardless of how you have
been exposed to them, the theory is that toxins may have an effect on
how quickly your eggs are released or how badly they're damaged.
Therefore, since egg-less ovaries lead to menopause, this means that
toxins drastically increase the risk of early menopause.
4. It Might Not be Early Menopause - and You Could Still Get Pregnant
Primary Ovarian Insufficiency
(POI), has the exact same symptoms of early menopause. Women who have
POI don't have regular periods, which leads them to think that they're
going through early menopause. The difference is that with POI, it's
still possible for a woman to get pregnant. Gass explains that "it's
rare, but possible. It's never definitive that you're in early menopause
and not in POI, because there's no test that can tell the difference.
So either way, if you don't want to get pregnant, you need to still use
contraception."
5. You Have an Increased Risk of Heart Disease
Women
who go through menopause naturally (as opposed to menopause as a result
of chemotherapy or ovary removal) before they turn 45 have a 40% higher
rate of heart failure than those who hit menopause at 50-54-years-old.
Why is this? High estrogen levels have been linked to healthier
cholesterol levels and blood vessels, leading researchers to believe
that estrogen has a positive effect on the cardiovascular system.
Therefore, early menopause means fewer years reaping the benefits of
estrogen.
6. You Have an Increased Risk of Alzheimer's Disease, and Cancer
Shorter telomeres indicate more
than just fast aging - damaged DNA actually increases your chances of
developing age related illnesses, including Alzheimer's diabetes, and
cancer. "Genetic mutations often have more than one negative effect, so
the genes that are causing early menopause may cause other hereditary
diseases."
this is only for your
information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines,
exercises and so on.
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Labels: Alzheimer's, cancer, early menopause, heart diseases, lower risk of breast and ovarian cancer, ovaries removed, premature ageing, toxins
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