Age at menarche and asthma onset among US girls and women: findings from NHANES, 2001-2018

Abstract

Purpose: To quantitatively estimate the association of age at menarche with the risk of childhood- and adult-onset asthma separately.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study of 24,282 US girls and women was conducted using continuous National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data from 2001 to 2018, and Cox proportional hazards regression models with censoring ages of 19 and 79 years were employed to separately estimate hazard ratios of childhood- and adult-onset asthma associated with age at menarche.

Results: Each one-year increase in age at menarche was significantly associated with a 16% (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.84; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.77-0.91) decrease in the risk of childhood-onset asthma. Compared with age at menarche of 12-14 years, we observed a 56% (HR = 1.56; 95% CI: 1.19-2.04) increased risk of childhood-onset asthma for early menarche (age at menarche < 12 years) and a 40% (HR = 0.60; 95% CI: 0.32-1.10) decreased risk for late menarche (age at menarche ≥ 15 years). No significant association was noted between age at menarche and adult-onset asthma.

Conclusions: Early menarche may represent a risk factor for childhood-onset asthma, which indicates the need for timely and effective management of individuals with early menarche to prevent asthma.

Keywords: Adult-onset asthma; Childhood-onset asthma; Menarche; National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey; US population.