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Research Article| Volume 54, ISSUE 1, P19-26, April 20, 2006

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Predictive factors for age at menopause in Caucasian females

  • Author Footnotes
    1 Contributed equally to this work.
    Volodymyr Dvornyk
    Footnotes
    1 Contributed equally to this work.
    Affiliations
    Department of Biological Sciences, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242-0001, USA

    Osteoporosis Research Center and Department of Biomedical Sciences, Creighton University, 601 N. 30th Street, Suite 6730, Omaha, NE 68131, USA
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  • Author Footnotes
    1 Contributed equally to this work.
    Ji-Rong Long
    Footnotes
    1 Contributed equally to this work.
    Affiliations
    Osteoporosis Research Center and Department of Biomedical Sciences, Creighton University, 601 N. 30th Street, Suite 6730, Omaha, NE 68131, USA

    Vanderbilt Center for Health Services Research, S-1108 Medical Center North, 1161 21st Ave South, Nashville, TN 37232-2587, USA
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  • Peng-Yuan Liu
    Affiliations
    Osteoporosis Research Center and Department of Biomedical Sciences, Creighton University, 601 N. 30th Street, Suite 6730, Omaha, NE 68131, USA

    Department of Surgery, Washington University in St. Louis, Campus Box 8109, 660 S. Euclid Ave, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA
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  • Lan-Juan Zhao
    Affiliations
    Osteoporosis Research Center and Department of Biomedical Sciences, Creighton University, 601 N. 30th Street, Suite 6730, Omaha, NE 68131, USA
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  • Hui Shen
    Affiliations
    Osteoporosis Research Center and Department of Biomedical Sciences, Creighton University, 601 N. 30th Street, Suite 6730, Omaha, NE 68131, USA
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  • Robert R. Recker
    Affiliations
    Osteoporosis Research Center and Department of Biomedical Sciences, Creighton University, 601 N. 30th Street, Suite 6730, Omaha, NE 68131, USA
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  • Hong-Wen Deng
    Correspondence
    Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 402 280 5911; fax: +1 402 280 5034.
    Affiliations
    Osteoporosis Research Center and Department of Biomedical Sciences, Creighton University, 601 N. 30th Street, Suite 6730, Omaha, NE 68131, USA

    The Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Ministry of Education and Institute of Molecular Genetics, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, PR China

    Laboratory of Molecular and Statistical Genetics, College of Life Sciences, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan 410081, PR China
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  • Author Footnotes
    1 Contributed equally to this work.

      Abstract

      Objective

      Early onset of menopause results in the premature exposure to low estrogen levels and is associated with a number of postmenopausal health problems and higher risk of mortality. The aim of this study was to determine genetic and environmental factors associated with age at natural and surgical menopause.

      Methods

      Multiple regression analysis using a sample of Caucasians composed of 154 females with surgical and 248 with natural menopause.

      Results

      Breastfeeding is a significant predictor of earlier natural menopause (P < 0.05). Use of oral contraceptives and smoking were not significantly associated with age at menopause. Females who did not have history of pregnancies are at significantly higher risk (P < 0.001) of getting early surgical menopause than those who did. We also tested the association of seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the estrogen receptor α (ER-α) gene with age at menopause. No association was observed with age at menopause but the PvuII p allele was overrepresented in women with surgical menopause and associated with menopause per se (P = 0.029; OR = 1.8, 95% CI = 1.1–3.0).

      Conclusions

      Breastfeeding and alcohol consumption are significantly associated with earlier natural menopause. No significant effects of the ER-α genotypes were observed on the age of menopause. Given the important role of the ER-α in estrogen signaling, which directly influences the menopausal process, further studies are required to better define the relationship between this gene and age at menopause.

      Keywords

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