Highlights
- •To our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the association of early menarche and new onset of asthma in the Swiss population.
- •It is also among the first studies to investigate the impact of early menarche, with prospective assessment of asthma incidence in women in later adulthood.
- •Women with early menarche had a tendency to a higher risk of new onset of asthma, especially in young atopic women.
- •To further substantiate this finding further longitudinal research taking atopic status into account is needed.
Abstract
Rationale
The association between early menarche and new onset of asthma warrants further investigation
in those aged >30 years.
Objectives
Using data from the Swiss Cohort Study on Air Pollution and Lung and Heart Diseases
in Adults (SAPALDIA), we investigated whether early menarche was associated with new
onset of asthma in women aged 18–60 years at baseline.
Methods
Our analysis included 2492 women with information on age at menarche and doctor-diagnosed
asthma, who had been asthma free at the time of menarche and had complete covariate
information. New onset of asthma was defined as newly reported doctor-diagnosed asthma
which occurred at least one year after menarche. Asthma incidence and its association
with early menarche was analysed using logistic regression, adjusting for age, atopy,
smoking, BMI, parental asthma, urbanity, education and study area, and additionally
stratifying by atopy and BMI.
Results
After adjustment of relevant confounders, women with early menarche did not have a
significantly higher risk of onset of asthma than women without early menarche (OR
1.23, 95% CI 0.85–1.80). Young atopic women with early menarche appeared to have an
increased risk of asthma compared with non-atopic women (OR 2.21, 95% CI 0.90–5.43);
however, our results did not reach statistical significance.
Conclusion
We could not substantiate an association of early menarche with new onset of asthma
in this Swiss population-based cohort aged 18–60 years at baseline. Future studies
may need to prospectively assess age of menarche to investigate the association with
new onset of asthma in those aged >30 years.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 22, 2017
Accepted:
April 4,
2017
Received in revised form:
April 3,
2017
Received:
October 20,
2016
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
