(ORDO NEWS) — According to a new study by British scientists, early childbirth, a large number of children and early onset of the menstrual cycle in women entail a high risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.
It is believed that estrogens , or female sex hormones, reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease in women.
As a result, women are again at risk only after menopause, while in women of reproductive age, leading a healthy lifestyle, the chance of falling with a heart attack or suffering from heart failure is low.
However, according to EurekAlert, a study conducted by scientists from Imperial College London (UK) showed that certain factors in a woman’s reproductive life can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.
These included earlier first births, more births, and onset of menstruation at a younger age.
In total, the researchers analyzed data from over 100,000 women.
They used a statistical method called Mendelian randomization: it overcame extraneous factors such as diet, economic status, and physical activity levels that could otherwise complicate the overall picture.
The analysis showed that childbirth at a young age, more births and earlier onset of the menstrual cycle are associated with a higher risk of atrial fibrillation, coronary heart disease, heart failure and stroke in women.
Curiously, the age of onset of menopause and subsequent hormonal changes in the body did not affect the risk of developing heart problems.
The researchers also found that the early onset of the menstrual cycle mainly had its negative impact due to the fact that such women, on average, had a higher body mass index.
In other words, maintaining a normal weight can help reduce the impact of this factor on cardiovascular health.
That is, despite the “protective” effect of estrogens, some factors of reproductive life can increase the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, and the misconception of doctors that men mostly suffer from heart problems costs women their health and even life.
However, more research is needed to determine the extent to which reproductive life patterns affect women’s health.
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