The risk of chest pain and stroke was 30% less in women who had more than 30 years between their menarche and menopause.
A longer duration of reproductive years was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, compared with a shorter duration in women older than 60 years of age. Every 1 year increase in reproductive //duration--years from menarche to menopause--was associated with a 3% reduction in a woman's risk of angina or stroke.
‘A longer duration of reproductive years in older women in the U.S. population was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.’
These results, demonstrated in women 60 years of age and older, support a protective role for estrogen, as reported in an article in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication. The researchers compared cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events among women divided into two groups, longer reproductive duration (<30 years from beginning to end of menstruation) and shorter reproduction duration (<30 years), performing subgroup analysis for 5-year increments in the longer duration group.
"By evaluating women's risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events based on the duration of their reproductive years, rather than just their age at menarche or their age at menopause as individual variables, Mansoor et al. take into account the effect of cumulative exposure to sex hormones such as estrogen," says Susan G. Kornstein, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Women's Health.
Source-Eurekalert