title: Early menarche increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes in young and middle-aged Korean women.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the association between early menarche (menarche age < 12 years) and Type 2 diabetes mellitus in young and middle-aged Korean women.
  
  
  METHODS
  We analysed data for 4657 women aged 20-50 years from the Fourth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES IV) (2007-2009).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The prevalence of Type 2 diabetes was 2.8%. Women with early menarche had a higher prevalence of impaired fasting glucose than did women with later menarche (age ≥ 12 years) in the 20-30 age group (7.4% vs. 3.0%), and a higher prevalence of diabetes in the 30-40 (6.3% vs. 1.7%) and 40-50 (18.5% vs. 4.4%) age groups. The odds ratio (OR) of Type 2 diabetes in women with early menarche was 3.61 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.90-6.88] after adjusting for age. In multivariate regression, the OR of Type 2 diabetes decreased to 2.52 (95% CI, 1.29-4.94) after further adjusting for BMI. However, the OR decreased to 2.04 (95% CI, 0.95-4.39) without significance after adjusting for HOMA-IR.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Early menarche increased the risk of Type 2 diabetes in young and middle-aged Korean women although adulthood adiposity attenuated the relationship. Knowledge of age at menarche is important in identifying women at risk for diabetes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Korea Cancer Center Hospital, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.forename: H S
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: E Y
authors.initials: EY
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: K H
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Hwang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D002648:Child; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007333:Insulin Resistance / Q000502:physiology; D008572:Menarche / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D056910:Republic of Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D012307:Risk Factors; D055815:Young Adult