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. 2025 Feb 26;111(6):262-268.
doi: 10.1136/heartjnl-2024-324602.

Age of menopause, healthy lifestyle and cardiovascular disease in women: a prospective cohort study

Anushriya Pant  1 , Alice A Gibson  2   3 , Simone Marschner  1 , Lee P Liao  1 , Liliana Laranjo  1 , Clara K Chow  1   4 , Sarah Zaman  5   4
Affiliations

Age of menopause, healthy lifestyle and cardiovascular disease in women: a prospective cohort study

Anushriya Pant et al. Heart. .

Abstract

Background: Menopause is a timely opportunity to screen for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and intervene with healthier lifestyles. We investigated the association between premature/early menopause and the likelihood of CVD and whether a healthy lifestyle is associated with a lower likelihood of CVD in menopausal woman.

Methods: The Sax Institute's 45 and Up Study prospectively recruited participants aged ≥45 years (n=267 357) between 2005 and 2009 (New South Wales, Australia). Our study included women without prior CVD and reporting menopausal age at baseline. Primary outcome was new-onset CVD (self-reported heart disease/stroke) based on survey data at Wave 2 (2012-2015) and/or Wave 3 (2018-2020). Logistic regression models assessed the associations of premature (age <40 years) and early (age 40-44 years) menopause with CVD, compared with menopause between 50 and 52 years, adjusting for sociodemographic and clinical variables. Healthy lifestyle adherence was assessed using a score of five factors: smoking, physical activity, sitting, sleep and diet.

Results: We included 46 238 women (mean age 62.1±8.2 years), with 5416 (11.7%) cases of CVD over 15-year follow-up. After adjustment, the odds of CVD was higher in women with premature menopause (OR 1.36, 95% CIs 1.17 to 1.59; p<0.0001) and early menopause (OR 1.15, 95% CI 1.03 to 1.28; p=0.013) compared with menopause between 50 and 52 years. Among all women, high (score 9-10) versus low (score 0-5) healthy lifestyle adherence led to 23% lower odds of CVD (OR 0.77, 95% CI 0.68 to 0.86; p<0.0001), and in women with premature menopause, led to 52% lower odds of CVD (OR 0.48, 95% CI 0.30 to 0.77, p=0.0022). Lifestyle effect did not significantly differ between menopause categories (interaction, p=0.71).

Conclusion: Women with premature/early menopause are at higher likelihood for CVD. Lifestyle modification is associated with consistent reduction of the likelihood of CVD in women and should be encouraged across the life course.

Keywords: Cardiovascular Diseases; Cohort Studies; Risk Assessment; Risk Factors.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: SZ discloses that she has received research grants to her institution from Abbott Vascular, Biotronik Australia and speaking/consulting honoraria from Novartis, Medtronic, Boehringer Ingelheim and AstraZeneca. The remaining authors have no relevant disclosures.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Forest plot of ORs for the association between overall healthy lifestyle adherence and the likelihood of cardiovascular disease (CVD) menopause categories in female participants from the 45 and Up Study cohort (N=46 238). Reference is low healthy lifestyle adherence. *Interaction effect between age of menopause and healthy lifestyle adherence on the likelihood of CVD was p=0.71.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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