Predictors of the timing of natural menopause in the Multiethnic Cohort Study.
The timing of natural menopause has implications for several health endpoints; in particular, it is a risk factor for breast cancer. The authors investigated factors influencing the timing of natural menopause among 95,704 women with a mean age of 59.7 years (10th-90th percentile range, 47.0-71.0) in five racial/ethnic groups in the Multiethnic Cohort Study, including non-Latina Whites, Japanese Americans, African Americans, Native Hawai'ians, and Latinas. The authors investigated whether race/ethnicity and several lifestyle and reproductive characteristics were associated with the timing of natural menopause. Race/ethnicity was a significant independent predictor of the timing of natural menopause. Other factors, including smoking, age at menarche, parity, and body mass index, did not significantly alter the race/ethnicity-specific hazard ratios. Relative to non-Latina Whites, natural menopause occurred earlier among Latinas (US-born Latinas: hazard ratio (HR) = 1.10, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.07, 1.14; non-US-born Latinas: HR = 1.25, 95% CI: 1.21, 1.30) and later among Japanese Americans (HR = 0.93, 95% CI: 0.90, 0.95). These results support the hypothesis that the timing of natural menopause is driven by a combination of genetic, reproductive, and lifestyle factors.
Henderson
Katherine DeLellis
KD
Department of Cancer Etiology, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA 91010, USA. khenderson@coh.org
Bernstein
Leslie
L
Henderson
Brian
B
Kolonel
Laurence
L
Pike
Malcolm C
MC
D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008593:Menopause / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D044469:Racial Groups; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States / Q000208:ethnology