Heart Disease in Women: Age of First Period Can Impact Heart Attack Risk

November 14th, 2019

Via: Today:

The age when a woman first starts having her period may be much more significant than she or her doctor realize: it can impact her risk of heart attack, stroke and heart failure.

But most women aren’t aware of this risk factor, said Dr. Carl Pepine, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

“Not only are the women not aware of it, but their physicians aren’t aware of it. This is not recorded in most medical records — 90%,” Pepine told TODAY. “I just don’t think they were informed about it.”

Pepine is the co-author of a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association that found women who started menstruating even a year earlier or later than 12 — which is the average age of menarche, or the first period, for U.S. women — had a higher risk of “major adverse cardiac events.”

Girls who had their first period at 10 or younger had a four-fold higher risk of heart attack, stroke, heart failure and premature death down the road compared to girls who started menstruating at 12, researchers found.

Those who had their first period at 11, 13, 14 and 15 or older had at least a two-fold increased risk of such major cardiac events.

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