Menarch: The Dangers of EOM

I heard once from a mother or two how impressed they were that their young darling started menstruation at an age younger than usual, in fact younger than they were during their time. Recent developments in medical research puts a huge question mark to the bases for that.

THERE is an alarming trend that scientists have observed in the last 100 years. It is the decline of women's age at menarche, or the first occurrence of menstrual period.

In the United States and Europe, it has decreased at a rate of two to three months for every 10 years.

This trend towards earlier onset of menarche is worth watching because early menarche (onset of menstruation at less than age 12.1 years) is a long-known and established risk factor for breast cancer, metabolic syndrome, teenage depression and overweight.

Its connection to breast cancer has been established around the last part of the 20th century and early years of the 21st century. Its contribution to the development of metabolic syndrome had been detected in 2003. Its involvement in teenage depression also got noticed in 2003. Its effect in causing overweight among early maturing women came up in the Adair study in 2001 and Wattigne study in 1999.

A study by Gluckman and Hanson in 2006 noted that... [READ MORE]

This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper as "The Dangers of Early Onset Menstration" on 29 August 2012.

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