TOPLINE

Premature menopause before the age of 40 years was associated with a higher risk for hypertension than normal menopause after the age of 45 years, with the highest risk observed between ages of 25 and 35 years.

METHODOLOGY

• Researchers conducted a prospective cohort study to evaluate the association between early or premature menopause and the risk of developing hypertension.
• They analysed data of 107,836 postmenopausal women (mean age, 59.5 years) residing in the UK between 2006 and 2010; of these, 88,649 women had menopause after the age of 45 years, 15,266 had menopause at the age of 40-45 years, and 3921 had menopause before the age of 40 years. Participants were followed up until 2023.
• Participants were grouped on the basis of the age at menopause as those with premature menopause (< 40 years), early menopause (40-45 years), and normal menopause (> 45 years), as well as on the basis of the type of menopause as those with natural or surgical menopause (bilateral oophorectomy).
• The outcome was the diagnosis of hypertension during follow-up.

TAKEAWAY

• Over a median follow-up of 14.8 years, 17.2% of women developed hypertension, including 16.6% with normal menopause, 18.8% with early menopause, and 22.6% with premature menopause (P < .001).
• After adjustment, women with premature menopause had a 12% higher risk for hypertension than those with normal menopause (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.12; P = .010). The association with early menopause was not significant.
• Hypertension was more common among women with surgical menopause than among those with natural menopause (23.0% vs 16.9%); however, surgical menopause showed no independent association with hypertension.
• An additional analysis showed that women who experienced menopause at the youngest ages appeared to be at the greatest risk of developing hypertension, with the highest risk seen in those who reached menopause between ages of 25 and 35 years.

IN PRACTICE

"Optimizing health during menopause is the gate way to healthy aging for women. The silent effects of the menopause transition can be substantial, as reflected in our study with the increased incidence of high blood pressure. Women with menopausal symptoms should be actively assessed for prevention, counseled on treatment options, and offered preventive measures and evidence-based therapies," the authors wrote.

"This finding opens the door to redefining the concept of premature menopause, at least in the context of cardiovascular disease, reducing it to less than age 35," they added.

SOURCE

This study was led by Vicente Arrarte, MD, PhD, Miguel Hernández University of Elche, Alicante, Spain. It was published online on July 28, 2026, in Menopause.

LIMITATIONS

Data on age at menopause were self-reported, which may have introduced recall bias. Residual confounding could not be ruled out. Definitions of hypertension may have varied across the study population, which may have affected outcome classification.

DISCLOSURES

This study was funded by a grant from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Universities, and Employment of the Generalitat Valenciana, Spain. The authors declared having no conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.