Long, Irregular Menstruation Cycles Increase Risk For Diabetes.(Brief Article)

2001 DEC 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Women who have long or very irregular menstrual cycles have an increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM), according to an article in the November 21, 2001, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Caren G. Solomon, MD, from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, and colleagues used data from the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) II, a prospective observational cohort study, to assess the risk of type 2 DM in women with a history of long or highly irregular menstrual cycles. The study analyzed data on 101,073 women with no history of DM and who reported information about their menstrual cycle patterns between the ages of 18 and 22 years on the baseline (1989) questionnaire. Included on the questionnaire was information about age, weight, height, family history of DM and physical activity. During follow-up, through 1997, 507 women were newly diagnosed with DM.

The authors found that women whose cycles were long (40 days or longer) or very irregular had about twice the risk of type 2 DM, compared with women with a usual cycle length of 26 to 31 days, after adjusting for body mass index (BMI) and several other potential confounding variables. The risk was greater for women who were obese.

According to background information in the article, other studies ...