International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics

Women's health research has identified 13 new regions of the genome associated with the onset of menopause.

An international team of scientists, including John Perry of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford and Dr Anna Murray of the University of Exeter, both in England, studied over 50,000 female patients' genes.

The researchers, who are also connected to the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry in the UK, confirmed four previously identified links between genome regions and the menopause and suggested further investigations are likely to find more.

It is hoped the scientists' findings could help doctors understand why some women's menstrual cycle stops prematurely and the association between this timing and related diseases like breast cancer as well as cardiovascular risk.

The study is published in the journal Nature Genetics and Dr Murray commented: "By finding out which genes control the timing of menopause we hope to be able understand why this happens very early to some women, reducing their chances of having children naturally."

An investigation recently published in the Archives of Internal Medicine and conducted by a team from the Rochester Methodist Hospital, the Mayo Clinic, in Minnesota, US, found a link between taking statins after menopause and an increase in the risk of developing diabetes mellitus.

Posted by Carla Mackenzie