University of Queensland research has found ethnicity plays a significant role in determining a woman's risk of developing type 2 diabetes after early menopause.
Dr Hsin-Fang Chung and a team of researchers from the UQ School of Public Health analyzed the health data of more than 330,000 postmenopausal women from 13 studies conducted in Australia, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, and China.
Australian/European White women who experienced premature menopause were one and a half times more likely to have type 2 diabetes than White women who experienced menopause at the expected age of 50 to 51." Their diabetes risk jumped to 28.6% for South Asian and 24.1% for Black women if they experience premature menopause, compared to 9.2% for White women." Dr Chung said this was the largest study to investigate the impact of premature menopause on the risk of type 2 diabetes in women from diverse ethnic backgrounds.
Related StoriesSenior author, Professor Gita Mishra said current research on the prevention of type 2 diabetes is largely based on health data from White male populations.