EXERCISE AND MENOPAUSE

New research debunks earlier studies suggesting link between how much a woman works out and her risk of early menopause. Health,

New research seems to settle the question of whether there's a link between how much a woman works out and her risk of early menopause. The conclusion? There is no link.

Previous studies have produced conflicting results, with some suggesting that very active women may be at lower risk of menopause before the age of 45, while other research came to the opposite conclusion.

In this new study, researchers analyzed data from more than 107,000 U.S. women between the ages of 25 and 42, who were followed for 20 years. As it turned out, there was no association between physical activity at any age and early menopause.

The findings were published in September in the journal Human Reproduction.

“Our study provides considerable information in helping us understand the relationship between activity and timing of menopause,” said study director Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts.

“Several previous welldesigned studies have found suggestions that more physical activity is associated with older age at menopause, but even in those studies the size of the effect was very small,” she said in a journal news release. “Our results, in conjunction with other studies, provide substantial evidence that physical activity is not importantly associated with early menopause,” she added.

But another researcher on the team added a caveat to the findings. “While our results do not suggest that more physical activity is associated with lower risk of early menopause, we would encourage premenopausal women to be physically active, as exercise is associated with a range of health benefits,” said study first author Mingfei Zhao.

Zhao, who conducted the study as a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, noted the pluses of exercise, such as a lower risk of heart disease, diabetes and breast cancer.

“Our results in no way suggest that premenopausal women should not be physically active.”