Premature menopause was associated with an increased lifetime risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) in Black women and White women in the U.S., according to a population-based cohort study published March 18 in JAMA. These findings emphasize the importance of reproductive factors in cardiovascular disease risk assessment.
For this study, Priya Mehta Freaney, MD, et al., included individual-level data from postmenopausal women (aged 55-69 years) across six cohorts who identified their race as Black or White, with a total of 163,600 person-years of follow-up, from 1964 to 2018. Participants had a mean age of 60 years and no history of CHD, and they provided complete data on menopausal status and CHD outcomes. Participants who reported menopause due to surgical procedures were excluded.
Results showed that premature…