Oral contraceptive use in relation to age at menopause in the DOM cohort

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Abstract

Background: We investigated the hypothesis that long-term use of oral contraceptives (OCs), in particular high-dose OCs, could postpone age at menopause. Methods: Data was used from 8701 women who participated in a breast cancer screening programme in Utrecht (DOM-3 cohort), and who did not use hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or OCs in the 4 years prior to their last menses. Data on OC-use, menopausal status, age at menopause, year of birth, parity, smoking behaviour, socio-economic status, body mass index and age at menarche was available. Use of high-dose OCs has been defined in this study as OC-use before 1972. The data was analysed by means of linear regression and Cox's proportional hazards analysis. Women still menstruating, women with surgical menopause and women lost to follow-up were censored at their last known date of menstruation. Endpoint was the natural menopause (n = 4589). Results: The use of high-dose OCs advanced the onset of menopause by ∼1.2 months for every year of OC-use compared with no OC-use. High-dose OC-use for ≥3 years, adjusted for confounding variables, increased the risk of earlier menopause compared with no OC-use (adjusted hazard ratio 1.12; 95% CI 1.03-1.21). The use of lower dose OCs did not increase the risk of earlier menopause (adjusted hazard ratio 1.00; 95% CI 0.91-1.09). Conclusions: These results are inconsistent with the hypothesis that long-term use of OCs could postpone the onset of menopause by inhibiting follicle depletion. Possible explanations are discussed.

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APA

De Vries, E., Den Tonkelaar, I., Van Noord, P. A. H., Van Der Schouw, Y. T., Te Velde, E. R., & Peeters, P. H. M. (2001). Oral contraceptive use in relation to age at menopause in the DOM cohort. Human Reproduction, 16(8), 1657–1662. https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/16.8.1657

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