Short, long menstrual cycles may increase heart disease risk
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- Irregular menstrual cycles are associated with CVD risk.
- Long and short menstrual cycles are associated with atrial fibrillation risk; short cycles are associated with coronary heart disease and heart attack.
Women with long or short menstrual cycles are more likely to develop CVD or atrial fibrillation compared with women reporting regular menstrual cycles, but they are no more likely to experience HF or stroke, researchers reported.
“Our research indicated that women with menstrual cycle dysfunction might have adverse health consequences,” Huijie Zhang, MD, PhD, professor and senior physician and deputy director of the department of endocrinology and metabolism at Nanfang Hospital of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China, told Healio. “Irregular menstrual cycles throughout the reproductive life span may be an important risk factor for CVD. These data highlight the importance of monitoring menstrual cycle characteristics throughout a woman’s reproductive life for the prevention of CVD and atrial fibrillation among women.”
Zhang and colleagues analyzed data from 58,056 women with no CVD at baseline participating in the UK Biobank, who reported their menstrual cycle regularity and length. The mean baseline age of women was 46 years. Women were asked, “How many days is your usual menstrual cycle? (number of days between each menstrual period).” Answer options included reporting days of menstrual cycle, “irregular cycle,” “do not know,” and “prefer not to answer.” Participants who had answered “do not know” or “prefer not to answer” were excluded from all analyses. Researchers defined menstrual cycle regularity as irregular if cycles were less than 21 days or longer than 35 days; regular was defined as 22 to 34 days. Main outcomes included incidence of CVD events, as well as incident CHD, MI, HF, AF and stroke.
The findings were published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
During a median of 11.8 years of follow-up, researchers observed 1,623 incident CVD cases, including 827 incident cases of CHD, 199 MIs, 271 strokes, 174 cases of HF and 393 cases of AF.
Compared with women with regular menstrual cycles, HRs for women with irregular menstrual cycles were 1.19 (95% CI, 1.07-1.31) for CVD events and 1.4 (95% CI, 1.14-1.72) for AF.
In analyses by cycle type, compared with women with regular menstrual cycles, HRs for CVD events were 1.29 for women reporting short menstrual cycles (95% CI, 1.11-1.5) and 1.11 for women reporting long menstrual cycles (95% CI, 0.98-1.56). Results persisted for women reporting short menstrual cycles after adjustment for education, race, history of hypertension and diabetes, BMI, lipids, age at menarche and other factors (HR = 1.29; 95% CI, 1.11-1.5). Risk for any CVD was more than twofold for women who maintained menstrual cycle irregularity during follow-up (HR = 2.32; 95% CI, 1.16-4.61); however, researchers did not observe associations between cycle length and CHD or AF for this subgroup.
Additionally, long or short cycle length were more likely to be associated with increased risk for AF, with HRs of 1.3 for short cycles (95% CI, 1.01-1.66) and 1.38 for long cycles (95% CI, 1.02-1.87). Researchers did not observe any associations between menstrual cycle length and regularity and stroke or HF.
In stratified analyses to assess risk factors for CVD, researchers found a significant interaction between irregular menstrual cycles and lower HDL and smoking status.
“We found irregular menstrual cycles were significantly associated with higher risk for AF, suggesting that menstrual cycle dysfunction might be a previously unknown risk factor for AF,” Zhang told Healio. “Further study is needed to determine the relationship between menstrual cycle characteristics and AF in this large population at high risk.”
For more information:
Huijie Zhang, MD, PhD, can be reached at huijiezhang2005@126.com; Twitter: @chensihanh18334.
Collapse
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts