The effect of obesity and overweightness on age of menopausal females

Abstract

Background: The annual increase in the prevalence of obesity around the world highlights the importance of comorbidities. Along with hormonal changes induced by increased body mass index (BMI), age at menopause might also affect female’s health profoundly. Thus, the present study aimed at studying the association between obesity and overweightness on age of menopause in females. Methods: In this study, patients, who were referred to the obesity clinic of Rasoule-Akram hospital, during years 2011 and 2013 were recruited and the required information were extracted from the center’s database. Inclusion criteria consisted of high BMI, no history of hysterectomy, genital tract cancer, no history of radiation to the abdomen or pelvis, and no primary amenorrhea. For analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Scheffe’s post hoc test for multiple comparisons considering α of 0.05 for significance level were used and all data were analyzed by the SPSS version 22 software. Results: Themeanage of menopause was 51.6±6 years and the majority of obese females had normal menopause age (57.6%). There was no significant association between the patients BMI and age of menopause and it seems that obesity and overweightness had no effect on age of menopause (P = 0.2). Conclusions: It seems that overweightness or obesity was not associated with age of menopause, so it could not be said that females, who were overweight or obese compared to normal-weight females had earlier or later menopause.