Women younger than 30 with type 1 diabetes may be more likely
than others to have problems with menstruation, including longer and heavier
periods.
Compared with their
nondiabetic sisters and unrelated women, women with type 1 diabetes reported
that they also tended to begin menstruating at a later age and went through
menopause relatively early, according to a report in the April issue of Diabetes
Care.
In addition, women
with type 1 diabetes tended to become pregnant less often and have more
stillbirths than women without the condition, Dr. Elsa S. Strotmeyer of the
University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and colleagues report.
They noted that the
study findings may not necessarily apply to women with type 1 diabetes who are
now younger than 30. That's because the findings are based on information from
women who were largely in their 40s, and reflected menstrual and reproductive
health from years ago, Dr. Strotmeyer explained.
She said that some of
the participants' reported menstruation problems may have stemmed from poor
control of their insulin and glucose levels--a problem that may have been more
common in years past, when the study participants were in their 20s.
"We don't know how
differences in treatment over the past 20 years or so may affect how younger
women may experience" menstruation problems in diabetes, stated Dr. Strotmeyer.
The researcher added
that she believed doctors are often aware that women with type 1 diabetes may
have problems with pregnancy, but menstrual problems can be overlooked. She
thinks that there's more focus on good pregnancy outcomes than there would be on
having less menstrual irregularities.
"And I think we sort
of do a disservice to quality of life for the type 1 diabetic women when we take
that perspective," she added.
For the study, Dr.
Strotmeyer and her colleagues reviewed questionnaire responses on menstrual and
reproductive health from 143 women with type 1 diabetes, 186 of their sisters
who did not have diabetes, and 158 unrelated women also free of diabetes.
Family history can
influence whether a woman has menstrual problems, and including diabetes-free
sisters in the study takes that into account, according to the researchers.
Among the problems
more frequently cited by women with type 1 diabetes when they were in their 20's
were heavy bleeding, periods lasting at least 6 days, and going more than 31
days between periods.
However, once women
turned 30, the rate of menstrual problems among nondiabetic women roughly
matched that of diabetic women.
Menstrual irregularities become more common as women age, Dr. Strotmeyer said, and these findings suggest that nondiabetics began to experience as many problems as diabetic women--not that menstrual irregularities resolved in diabetic women.
Source: Diabetes In Control Dot
Com: Diabetes Care
2003;26:1016-1021.
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