36
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Age at Menarche and Its Association with the Metabolic Syndrome and Its Components: Results from the KORA F4 Study

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Objective

          The metabolic syndrome is a major public health challenge and identifies persons at risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The aim of this study was to examine the association between age at menarche and the metabolic syndrome (IDF and NCEP ATP III classification) and its components.

          Design

          1536 women aged 32 to 81 years of the German population based KORA F4 study were investigated. Data was collected by standardized interviews, physical examinations, and whole blood and serum measurements.

          Results

          Young age at menarche was significantly associated with elevated body mass index (BMI), greater waist circumference, higher fasting glucose levels, and 2 hour glucose (oral glucose tolerance test), even after adjusting for the difference between current BMI and BMI at age 25. The significant effect on elevated triglycerides and systolic blood pressure was attenuated after adjustment for the BMI change. Age at menarche was inversely associated with the metabolic syndrome adjusting for age (p-values: <0.001 IDF, 0.003 NCEP classification) and additional potential confounders including lifestyle and reproductive history factors (p-values: 0.001, 0.005). Associations remain significant when additionally controlling for recollected BMI at age 25 (p-values: 0.008, 0.033) or the BMI change since age 25 (p-values: 0.005, 0.022).

          Conclusion

          Young age at menarche might play a role in the development of the metabolic syndrome. This association is only partially mediated by weight gain and increased BMI. A history of early menarche may help to identify women at risk for the metabolic syndrome.

          Related collections

          Most cited references25

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Childhood obesity and adult morbidities.

          The prevalence and severity of obesity have increased in recent years, likely the result of complex interactions between genes, dietary intake, physical activity, and the environment. The expression of genes favoring the storage of excess calories as fat, which have been selected for over many millennia and are relatively static, has become maladaptive in a rapidly changing environment that minimizes opportunities for energy expenditure and maximizes opportunities for energy intake. The consequences of childhood and adolescent obesity include earlier puberty and menarche in girls, type 2 diabetes and increased incidence of the metabolic syndrome in youth and adults, and obesity in adulthood. These changes are associated with cardiovascular disease as well as with several cancers in adults, likely through insulin resistance and production of inflammatory cytokines. Although concerns have arisen regarding environmental exposures, there have been no formal expert recommendations. Currently, the most important factors underlying the obesity epidemic are the current opportunities for energy intake coupled with limited energy expenditure.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Childhood predictors of adult obesity: a systematic review.

            To identify factors in childhood which might influence the development of obesity in adulthood. The prevalence of obesity is increasing in the UK and other developed countries, in adults and children. The adverse health consequences of adult obesity are well documented, but are less certain for childhood obesity. An association between fatness in adolescence and undesirable socio-economic consequences, such as lower educational attainment and income, has been observed, particularly for women. Childhood factors implicated in the development of adult obesity therefore have far-reaching implications for costs to the health-services and economy. In order to identify relevant studies, electronic databases--Medline, Embase, CAB abstracts, Psyclit and Sport Discus-were searched from the start date of the database to Spring 1998. The general search structure for electronic databases was (childhood or synonyms) AND (fatness or synonyms) AND (longitudinal or synonyms). Further studies were identified by citations in retrieved papers and by consultation with experts. Longitudinal observational studies of healthy children which included measurement of a risk factor in childhood (<18 y), and outcome measure at least 1 y later. Any measure of fatness, leanness or change in fatness or leanness was accepted. Measures of fat distribution were not included. Only studies with participants from an industrialized country were considered, and those concerning minority or special groups, e.g. Pima Indians or children born preterm, were excluded. Risk factors for obesity included parental fatness, social factors, birth weight, timing or rate of maturation, physical activity, dietary factors and other behavioural or psychological factors. Offspring of obese parent(s) were consistently seen to be at increased risk of fatness, although few studies have looked at this relationship over longer periods of childhood and into adulthood. The relative contributions of genes and inherited lifestyle factors to the parent-child fatness association remain largely unknown. No clear relationship is reported between socio-economic status (SES) in early life and childhood fatness. However, a strong consistent relationship is observed between low SES in early life and increased fatness in adulthood. Studies investigating SES were generally large but very few considered confounding by parental fatness. Women who change social class (social mobility) show the prevalence of obesity of the class they join, an association which is not present in men. The influence of other social factors such as family size, number of parents at home and childcare have been little researched. There is good evidence from large and reasonably long-term studies for an apparently clear relationship for increased fatness with higher birth weight, but in studies which attempted to address potential confounding by gestational age, parental fatness, or social group, the relationship was less consistent. The relationship between earlier maturation and greater subsequent fatness was investigated in predominantly smaller, but also a few large studies. Again, this relationship appeared to be consistent, but in general, the studies had not investigated whether there was confounding by other factors, including parental fatness, SES, earlier fatness in childhood, or dietary or activity behaviours. Studies investigating the role of diet or activity were generally small, and included diverse methods of risk factor measurement. There was almost no evidence for an influence of activity in infancy on later fatness, and inconsistent but suggestive evidence for a protective effect of activity in childhood on later fatness. No clear evidence for an effect of infant feeding on later fatness emerged, but follow-up to adulthood was rare, with only one study measuring fatness after 7y. Studies investigating diet in childhood were limited and inconc
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Early age at menarche associated with cardiovascular disease and mortality.

              The relationship between age at menarche and cardiovascular disease remains unclear. Two recent studies found an inverse association between age at menarche and all-cause mortality. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between age at menarche and cardiovascular disease risk factors, events, and mortality. A population-based prospective study involving 15,807 women, aged 40-79 yr in 1993-1997 and followed up to March 2007 for cardiovascular disease events (median follow-up 10.6 yr) and February 2008 for mortality (median follow-up 12.0 yr) was used. Odds ratios for cardiovascular disease risk factors and hazard ratios for incident cardiovascular disease and mortality were calculated. There were 3888 incident cardiovascular disease events (1323 coronary heart disease, 602 stroke, and 1963 other) and 1903 deaths (640 cardiovascular disease, 782 cancer, and 481 other) during follow-up. Compared with other women, those who had early menarche (<12 yr) had higher risks of hypertension [1.13 (1.02-1.24)], incident cardiovascular disease [1.17 (1.07-1.27)], incident coronary heart disease [1.23 (1.06-1.43)], all-cause mortality [1.22 (1.07-1.39)], cardiovascular disease mortality [1.28 (1.02-1.62)], and cancer mortality [1.25 (1.03-1.51)], adjusted for age, physical activity, smoking, alcohol, educational level, occupational social class, oral contraceptive use, hormone replacement therapy, parity, body mass index, and waist circumference. Early age at menarche (before age 12 yr) was associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease events, cardiovascular disease mortality, and overall mortality in women, and this association appeared to be only partly mediated by increased adiposity.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1932-6203
                2011
                18 October 2011
                : 6
                : 10
                : e26076
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Helmholtz Zentrum München, Institute of Epidemiology II, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany
                [2 ]Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Campus Grosshadern, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany
                [3 ]Central Hospital of Augsburg, MONICA/KORA Myocardial Infarction Registry, Augsburg, Germany
                [4 ]Institute of Biometrics and Epidemiology, German Diabetes Center, Leibniz Center for Diabetes Research at Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany
                [5 ]London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Social and Mathematical Epidemiology Group, London, United Kingdom
                [6 ]Helmholtz Zentrum München, Institute of Epidemiology I, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany
                Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Peru
                Author notes

                Conceived and designed the experiments: DS CM AP BT CH MH HS AD. Performed the experiments: DS CM AD. Analyzed the data: DS CM HS AD. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: CM AP WR BK AD. Wrote the paper: DS CM AP BT CH MH WR BK HS AD.

                Article
                PONE-D-11-09742
                10.1371/journal.pone.0026076
                3196515
                22028807
                3a460b27-85bb-4003-81aa-87dc9651a22c
                Stöckl et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
                History
                : 30 May 2011
                : 19 September 2011
                Page count
                Pages: 7
                Categories
                Research Article
                Medicine
                Cardiovascular
                Cardiovascular Diseases in Women
                Endocrinology
                Reproductive Endocrinology
                Epidemiology
                Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology
                Clinical Epidemiology
                Lifecourse Epidemiology
                Metabolic Disorders
                Obstetrics and Gynecology
                Menstrual Abnormalities
                Primary Care
                Public Health
                Behavioral and Social Aspects of Health
                Health Screening
                Preventive Medicine
                Women's Health
                Cardiovascular Diseases in Women

                Uncategorized
                Uncategorized

                Comments

                Comment on this article