Turns out, there are no links between early menopause and the amount of physical activity that women undertake.
Until now, there have been conflicting findings of the relation between physical activity and menopause, with some studies suggesting that women who are very physically active may be at lower risk of a menopause before the age of 45, while others have found evidence of the opposite effect.However, the latest study has analysed data from 107,275 women, who were followed prospectively from the time they joined the Nurses’ Health Study II in 1989 until 2011 and found no association between physical activity at any age and early natural menopause.
Dr Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson, Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts, USA, who directed the research, said, “Our study provides considerable information in helping us understand the relationship between activity and timing of menopause; this is because of its size, its focus on early menopause specifically, and because of its prospective design, which limited the likelihood of bias and allowed us to look at physical activity at different time periods.”Several previous studies have found suggestions that more physical activity is associated with older age at menopause, but even in those studies the size of the effect was very small. Our results, in conjunction with other studies, provide substantial evidence that physical activity is not importantly associated with early menopause,” she added.Female nurses in US, aged 25-42, were enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study II in 1989 and they completed questionnaires about lifestyles and medical conditions every two years thereafter. They were asked about the time they spent in recreational physical activities such as walking, running, cycling, racquet sports, swimming laps, aerobic activities, yoga, weight training and high-intensity activities such as lawn mowing. The researchers also collected information on factors such as race, ethnicity, age, education, height, the age when the women had their first periods, whether or not they had been pregnant and how often, use of oral contraceptives and hormone therapy, whether or not they smoked, weight and body mass index (BMI), diet and use of dietary supplements.In order to assess the frequency, duration and intensity of the activities, the researchers multiplied the hours per week of each activity by its metabolic equivalent (MET) score to create total MET-hours per week.
