Natural and surgical menopause closely associated with kidney stone development

A recent study published in the Annals of Epidemiology suggest that natural and surgical menopause are associated with kidney stone disease (KSD) in Asian population. However, postmenopausal hormone therapy did not increase the risk of kidney stone disease (KSD).

The relationship between menopause, postmenopausal hormone therapy, and kidney stone disease was unclear, and most previous research has focused on Caucasians. To explore this issue in an Asian population, a cross-sectional study was conducted by the team led by Tsz-Yi Tang using female participants aged 30-70 years from the Taiwan Biobank. The presence of KSD was defined using a self-reported questionnaire, and the participants were divided into premenopausal and postmenopausal groups. The associations among menopause, postmenopausal hormone therapy, and KSD were examined using binary logistic regression models.

The key highlights of the study were:

A total of 17,460 women were enrolled, with 5976 in the premenopausal group and 11,484 in the postmenopausal group.

The prevalence of KSD was significantly higher in the postmenopausal group than in the premenopausal group (6% vs. 3%).

After adjusting for confounders, the odds ratio for KSD was higher in the postmenopausal group than in the premenopausal group (odds ratio = 1.50; 95% confidence interval = 1.17–1.92).

Both types of menopause (natural and surgical) were associated with KSD in age-adjusted and multivariable models. However, there was no association between postmenopausal hormone therapy and KSD in postmenopausal women who had received it.

The study's limitations include the use of self-reported data, which may not be accurate, and the cross-sectional design, which limits the ability to establish causal relationships. Further research is needed to confirm the findings and explore the underlying mechanisms.

Source:

Tang, T.-Y., Lee, J.-I., Shen, J.-T., Lee, Y.-C., Wang, H.-S., Tsao, Y.-H., Wu, Y.-H., Huang, S.-P., Chen, S.-C., Jhan, J.-H., & Geng, J.-H. (2023). The association between menopause, postmenopausal hormone therapy, and kidney stone disease in Taiwanese women. In Annals of Epidemiology (Vol. 78, pp. 13–18). Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annepidem.2022.12.002