Early menopause ‘can increase risk of heart failure in women’

A new study has for the first time demonstrated a possible link between early menopause and an increased risk of heart failure in women.

Conducted by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and published in Menopause, the journal of the North American Menopause Society (NAMS), the research analysed data from more than 22,000 postmenopausal women from the Swedish National Patient Register.

It revealed that women who went through menopause naturally between the ages of 40 and 45 had a rate of heart failure around 40 percent higher than those who reached the usual menopausal age of between 50 and 54.

The study also revealed that smoking habits, whether current or in the past, raised the risk of heart failure even further, independently of menopausal age.

NAMS executive director Margery Gass said: "This thought-provoking study should encourage more research to find out how early menopause and heart failure are linked. Do the factors that cause heart failure also cause ovarian failure?"

Heart failure affects more than 750,000 people in the UK, with the majority of patients being over the age of 75.