What The Age You Got Your First Period Says About You, According To Science
This is an interesting factor that hasn’t been fully explained: Race does seem to have a genuine impact on your menarche time. The difference isn’t great — in the U.S., the average age of menarche is 12.88 for white girls and 12.16 for African American girls. And statistics place the average for Hispanic girls somewhere between those two.
But why? A study in 2003 found that it didn’t have anything to do with one race weighing more than another, or differences in BMI. Socioeconomic variables don’t explain it, either. One idea, raised by a 1999 study, is that it’s about the presence of a certain protein in the body. African American girls have higher levels of IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1), a protein that has a huge influence on how fast we age and mature. A bigger IGF-1 dose may just mean that one’s body grows up faster.
A Very Early Or Very Late Period Means More Risk Of Heart Disease
So far, so OK. But what happens if your menarche happens way outside the normal range? Say, before the age of 10, or after 17? The bad news is that, if you ask a study published in 2014, abnormalities in your first period age are indicators of a nasty possibility in adulthood: heart disease.
The scientists observed a whopping 1.3 million women to see what impact having a seriously early or late period might have on heart health. The results aren’t stellar: If you fall into either of those abnormal menarche groups, you’re 27 percent more likely than normal period-starters to be hospitalized for or die from heart disease. The researchers think that it’s because weight problems (under and over), and corresponding pressure on the heart, can push menarche in radically weird directions.
Getting A Period Before Age 12 Is Linked To Breast Cancer
The hits just keep on coming. If your menarche came before the age of 12, which is around the national average, you need to get tested for breast cancer frequently. Statistics show that, nastily enough, a pre-12 menarche has been linked to a 20 percent higher likelihood of a breast cancer diagnosis at some point in later life. The general rule is that for every extra year a woman menstruates before the average, you can add five percent to her chances of developing breast cancer.
According to a new study from the University of Oxford, this also means that the later a woman finishes having periods (when she enters menopause), the more at risk she is. The research also showed that a more period-filled life is actually linked to specific kinds of breast cancer: estrogen-sensitive cancer and lobular tumors.
The big factor in this? Exposure to hormones. It looks like the more estrogen and period-causing hormones you experience over your life, particularly at your menarche, the more likely it is that your body will develop breast cancers that are hormonally sensitive. Interestingly, though, the age of menarche has no influence on when you’ll hit menopause; the two things are completely independent.
