No woman looks forward to the night sweats, hot flashes, and mood swings that signal the start of menopause. In fact, many women take hormone pills to help keep this inevitable part of aging at bay. However, a new study is showing that you may be able to delay this unpleasant part of aging by a few years if you lead a healthier life right now.
Doctors have found that women who smoke and who carry a lot of excess weight start suffering from menopause much sooner than other, healthier women. It’s long been suspected that these conditions, which also raise your risk of cardiovascular disease, are somehow connected to menopause. However, researchers previously believed that early menopause brought on the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Now it appears that it’s the other way around. According to an article in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, women who have high cholesterol, carry excess weight, and have high blood pressure tend to experience menopause at an earlier age than women who don’t suffer from these problems. In fact, having a percent increase in one of these areas could mean you risk suffering menopause 1.8 years earlier than normal.
Bad habits such as smoking and eating too much salt can raise your blood pressure, while carrying excess weight and eating a poor diet can up your cholesterol. So, if you want to avoid early menopause, you may want to consider changing some of the negative aspects of your lifestyle. There’s also evidence that after menopause, your heart disease risk goes up even more.
If you go into menopause early thanks to a number of unhealthy habits, you may further up your risk of suffering a heart attack or worse. Try butting out, losing those excess pounds, and eating better. These three simple steps can help you stay healthy and reduce your risk of disease at any age.