一项新的研究表明，吸烟的女性绝经年龄比不吸烟女性要早大概一年，同时指出，更早的绝经可能会增加患骨骼及心脏疾病风险。
吸烟或致女性更年期提前
该项研究成果发表在《Menopause》杂志，其数据来自既往的一些研究，这些研究的对象包括了大概6000名美国、波兰、土耳其和伊朗的女性。
不吸烟女性绝经平均年龄在46到51岁之间。但是在前述的研究中，除了其中两项其他均表明，吸烟的女性绝经的年龄提前了，大体是在43至50岁。
女性绝经后，卵巢停止产生卵子并不再受孕。
“我们的研究结果给出了进一步的证据，证实吸烟与绝经年龄提前具有显著相关性，这也为吸烟的女性戒除这一习惯提供了又一个理由。”文章作者、来来自香港大学的Volodymyr Dvornyk博士这样写道。
过早或过晚绝经均具有健康风险。比如，绝经晚的女性被认为得乳腺癌的风险更高，因为雌激素使该病的一个风险因子的影响增倍。
“一般认为，提前绝经更易遭遇绝经后健康问题，比如骨质疏松、心血管疾病、糖尿病、肥胖、阿兹海默病以及其他一些疾病。” Dvornyk在给路透社的一封邮件中写道。
总的来说，他补充道，绝经年龄提前还被认为稍微增加了女性今后死亡的风险。
哥伦比亚大学的Jennie Kline说，关于吸烟可能意味着提前绝经有两种理论。
吸烟对女性身体产生或停止产生雌激素有影响。而另外一些研究者认为香烟的某种组分会杀死卵子，Kline补充道。Kline并未参与该研究。
由于Dvornyk的研究小组未掌握研究中的女性烟龄长短及每天吸烟次数的信息，所以他们未能确定这些因素如何对绝经年龄产生影响。
基于此，且由于缺少与绝经相关的其他健康及生活方式因素的数据，他们说，该分析可能并不足以解决长期存在的吸烟与绝经之间的问题。
Meta-analysis suggests that smoking is associated with an increased risk of early natural menopause
Sun Lu; Tan Lijun; Yang Fang; Luo Yi; Li XiD; Deng Hong-Wen; Dvornyk, Volodymyr
Objective: Age at natural menopause (ANM) is usually defined as the age at the last menstrual bleeding followed by the absence of menses for 12 consecutive months. Although many studies have suggested an association between smoking and early age at natural menopause, evidence remains conflicting because some studies reported inconsistent or contrasting results. To resolve this ambiguity and to quantitatively evaluate the effect of smoking on ANM, we conducted a meta-analysis of the available data about smoking and ANM.
Methods: After extensive searching of public literature databases, a total of 11 studies were selected for this meta-analysis. Among them, the phenotype of the participants in five studies (dichotomous studies) was classified as early or late ANM, and odds ratio (OR) was used to evaluate the effect of smoking on early ANM. For the other six studies (continuous studies), mean and SD were provided for smoking and nonsmoking samples, and weighted mean difference (WMD) was used as the effect size.
Results: We found that smoking was significantly associated with early ANM in both dichotomous and continuous studies. The pooled effect was OR = 0.74 (95% CI, 0.60-0.91, P < 0.01) in the dichotomous studies. For the continuous studies, the pooled effect estimated by WMD was -1.12 (95% CI, -1.80 to -0.44, P = 0.04). After adjustment of the original data for heterogeneity, the pooled results changed only a little: OR = 0.67 (95% CI, 0.61-0.73, P < 0.01) for dichotomous studies and WMD = -0.90 (95% CI, -1.58 to -0.21, P = 0.01) for the continuous studies.
Conclusions: The results of our study suggest that smoking is a significant independent factor for early ANM.
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