Natural menopause and menopause with a surgical cause have been associated with a higher risk of alterations in glucose metabolism in postmenopause. That led many researchers to theorize that early onset (women aged 40-45 y) or premature (women aged < 40 y) menopause would increase a woman’s risk of type 1 or type 2 diabetes. However, a new large-scale study analyzed nearly 147,000 women over a mean follow-up of 14.5 years and concluded that there was no independent or clinically significant relationship between age or type of menopause and the onset of diabetes.
The mean age of women in the study was 60 years, and more than half (60%) were classified as overweight or obese. Nearly 6,600 women (4.5%) were diagnosed with diabetes. Although the incidence of diabetes was higher for women with earlier-onset menopause (5.2% vs 4.2%), the significance disappeared in multivariate modeling. Thus, neither age at menopause nor type of menopause was independently associated with the onset of diabetes.
A significantly higher incidence of diabetes was also observed in women with other risk factors, such as smoking at 7.5%, obesity at 10.8%, no intake of vegetables at 6.8%, cholesterol medication at 10.0%, and a high intake of added salt at 7.0%.
The researchers associated the misleading associations observed in the crude and age-adjusted analyses with the presence of confounders. More research is needed to better document the causal pathways between early or premature menopause and its association with morbidity and mortality to implement more appropriate prevention and screening measures in this important segment of the population.
Study results are published in the article “Timing and type of menopause are not risk factors for the onset of diabetes: a UK Biobank cohort study.”
“The results of this study highlight that, although postmenopausal women are at increased risk for diabetes, it does not appear to be related to the age at menopause onset or whether menopause occurs naturally or due to surgery but rather to cardiovascular and lifestyle risk factors. This is somewhat reassuring in that cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypertension and hyperlipidemia, can be controlled, and lifestyle factors, such as smoking, diet, and exercise are modifiable, whereas age at menopause is not,” says Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director for The Menopause Society.
Reference:
Quesada JA, Bertomeu-Gonzalez V, Cordero A, Ruiz-Nodar JM, Sanchez-Ferrer F, Lopez-Ayala JM, Cazorla D, Soriano-Maldonado C, Arrarte V. Timing and type of menopause are not risk factors for the onset of diabetes: a UK Biobank cohort study. Menopause. 2026 Jan 13. doi: 10.1097/GME.0000000000002720.
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