Women who have irregular periods seemingly face a substantially higher risk of suffering from heart disease, a new study suggests.
The study of more than 58,000 women over 12 years showed that, at worst, irregular menstrual periods can increase women’s risk of heart disease by 19 per cent.
Even more worryingly the risk of developing an irregular heartbeat can increase by as much as 40 per cent in women with an irregular period.
The researchers in China used data from the UK BioBank, a huge repository of health and genetic data from half a million UK participants; their results were published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Irregular periods affect millions of women, it is estimated that between 14% and 25% of women have menstrual cycles that fall outside the ‘normal’ range, that is between 21 and 35 days.
The 12-year study found that 3.4 percent of the 58,000 women who had irregular cycles went on to develop heart disease, compared to about 2.5 percent of those with normal periods.
Dr Huijie Zhang, a professor at Southern Medical University in China and lead author of the study, said: ‘These findings have important public health implications for the prevention of atrial fibrillation and heart attack among women and highlight the importance of monitoring menstrual cycle characteristics throughout a woman’s reproductive life.’
The study used data from more than 58,000 healthy UK women who reported the length of their cycle, counting from the first day of one period to the first day of the next, at the start of a 12-year follow-up period.
None of the participants, whose average age was 46, had cardiovascular disease at the start of the study. After almost 12 years researchers had identified 1,623 cardiovascular ‘events’ among the participants, including 827 incident cases of coronary heart disease, 199 heart attacks, 271 strokes, 174 cases of heart failure, and 393 cases of atrial fibrillation, or irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood clots.
Over 1.7 percent of women with irregular cycles developed coronary heart disease (CHD) where plaque builds up on artery walls inhibiting blood flow. This compares to 1.3 per cent of women with regular periods who developed CHD.
And about 0.6 percent of those with regular cycles developed atrial fibrillation, compared with nearly one percent of those with irregular cycles.
Several existing studies have drawn links between irregular periods and undesirable health outcomes but the connection between regular menstrual cycles and heart disease is not completely clear.
Estrogen, a hormone fundamental to the menstrual cycle, is also linked to cardiovascular function aiding in healthy blood flow and keeping blood pressure low.
Dr Zhang said: 'The association between menstrual cycle characteristics and adverse cardiovascular outcomes remains unclear.
'Considering the increasing prevalence of heart disease — with 45 percent of women in Western countries affected — and related mortality, there is a need to explore these risk factors.'
