THURSDAY, Sept. 6, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Physical activity is not associated with natural menopause before age 45 years (early menopause), according to a study published online Aug. 21 in Human Reproduction.
Mingfei Zhao, M.P.H., from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and colleagues examined the correlation between physical activity and the occurrence of early natural menopause in the Nurses’ Health Study II. A total of 107,275 women who were premenopausal at baseline were followed prospectively from 1989 to 2011.
The researchers found that 2,786 study members experienced menopause before age 45 years. There was no correlation between adulthood physical activity and early menopause after adjustment for age, smoking, and other factors; women in the highest category of exercise (≥42 metabolic task hours per week [MET h/week]) of cumulatively-averaged total physical activity had a hazard ratio of 0.89 compared with women reporting <3 MET h/week (95 percent confidence interval, 0.76 to 1.04; P-trend, 0.26). There was no correlation for moderate or strenuous activity in adolescence and young adulthood with risk. There was no variation in the relation of physical activity and early menopause across body mass index or smoking status strata.
“Findings from our large prospective study do not support an important association between physical activity and early menopause,” the authors write.
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