Early menopause before age 45, 46% higher risk of fatty liver within a year
May 19, 2025
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The pre-diabetes stage and the risk of obesity and hypertension were also 11-14% higher.
The study was unveiled at the first joint conference of the European Society for Pediatric Endocrine Studies (ESPE) and the European Society for Endocrine Studies (ESE), suggesting that menopause should be considered an important factor in evaluating women's risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.
Most women experience menopause as part of the biological aging process between the ages of 45 and 55.
Postmenopausal women have a higher risk of long-term health problems, including fatty liver disease and metabolic disorders.
Fatty liver disease is also known as metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MASLD), a disease caused by fat accumulation in the liver.
Although the risk of MASLD increases rapidly before and after the average menopause age, the exact association between menopause period and MASLD has not yet been clearly identified.
Meanwhile, researchers at Hadasa Medical Center in Israel and the Hebrew University Jerusalem campus conducted a study of 89,474 women.
The research team classified participants into groups that had not experienced menopause since the age of 40 to 49 and 50. As a result, women (early menopause) who underwent menopause at the age of 40 to 44 had a 46% higher risk of developing fatty liver disease within a year of menopause.
In addition, early menopause women were found to have an 11% increased risk of pre-diabetes and obesity, 14% increased risk of hypertension and 13% increased risk of blood lipid abnormalities.
Women who experienced menopause between the ages of 45 and 49 (early and normal menopause) also had a 30% increased risk of developing fatty liver disease and a 16% increased risk of pre-diabetic stage.
In previous studies, no clear association between menopause and MASLD was found.
However, this study shows that menopause has the potential to affect metabolic risk factors (high blood pressure, obesity, etc.) associated with fatty liver disease.
Dr. Joshua Stoka, who led the study, explained "Previous studies did not produce consistent results due to small participants and short follow-up periods, but this study is the largest study in a five-year period, supporting the hypothesis that women are relatively protected from cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in premenopausal conditions."
Dr. Dohan Stoka emphasized the need to consider early menopause before age 45 as a risk factor for MASLD. The research team will further investigate the effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on pre-menopausal women in the future.
Dr. Stoka said "As women who experienced early menopause were found to have a higher risk of MASLD, clinical studies are needed to investigate whether HRT can mitigate this risk.""With an aging society and increased obesity and metabolic disorders, these interventions can play an important role in reducing the burden of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in postmenopausal women."," he added.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
