Uc Science Today

Heart disease is the leading cause of death among American women, killing 1 in 3 of them each year. A study by Nisha Parikh, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, showed that the age a woman is when she reaches menopause affects her risk of developing a heart disease. “We found that a longer reproductive period duration was actually associated with less of a risk of heart failure. And that was mostly driven by the age of menopause, so that having an early age at menopause was associated with a higher risk of heart failure”. But researchers still don’t know what causes it and are working on further studies to find the answers. “We need to understand what it is about sort of an increased reproductive period that protects a woman from heart failure. Is it something biologic or is it something related to sociodemographic factors or lifestyle choices. I think all of that will be really interesting to explore in the future.”