Background The association between a history of pregnancy and liver fibrosis remains unclear. Herein, we investigated the association between reproductive factors, including a history of pregnancy and liver fibrosis, in postmenopausal Korean women.
Methods This study used nationally representative, population-based data collected from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2008–2017. Of 14,624 women with natural menopause, 11,085 with no previous history of any type of cancer, hepatitis, or chronic heavy alcohol consumption were enrolled. We investigated the reproductive factors, including a history of pregnancy, total reproductive years, age at menarche and menopause, and oral contraceptive use. Liver fibrosis was defined as a Fibrosis-4 index score ≥2.67 kg/m2.
Results Of the study participants, 372 (3.3%) had advanced liver fibrosis. Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that women with a history of more than one pregnancy were associated with a lower risk of liver fibrosis compared to women who had never been pregnant, after adjusting for potential confounders (adjusted odds ratio, 0.30; 95% confidence interval, 0.15–0.59). The risk of liver fibrosis did not increase significantly with an increasing number of pregnancies (P for trend=0.135). Other reproductive factors, including total reproductive years, age at menopause and menarche, and oral contraceptive use, were not significantly associated with liver fibrosis.
Conclusion Postmenopausal women who had experienced one or more pregnancies had a reduced risk of liver fibrosis. Our findings reveal a potential protective role of pregnancy against liver fibrosis.
Background : Estrogen deficiency after menopause is a major reason of bone loss in postmenopausal women. YSM (years since menopause) is negatively related with BMD in postmenopausal women. Bone loss after menopause is accelerated in early stage of menopause, and then decreases. There are some evidence that body weight can prevent bone loss in menopausal women. Therefore, we evaluated associations of the general characteristics and lumbar BMD of postmenopausal Korean women, and determined the rate of bone loss after menopause at 5-year interval.
Methods : BMD was measured by DEXA system, and physical, anthropometric data including body fat were obtained in 1006 peri- and postmenopausal women. Pearsons correlation coefficients were made among physical, anthropometric data and lumbar BMD. To determine the contributable factors for lumbar Bmd, multiple regression analysis was done.
Results : 1) In Pearsons correlation analysis among body composition YSM and spinal BMD, YSM was strongly associated negatively with spinal BMD. 2) On the other hand, weight and BMI was associated positively with psinal BMD. 3) The percent difference in spinal BMD between perimenopause and 5-years after menopause was 15.3%. 4) Years since menopause, body weight was revealed as and important factor that predicted spinal BMD by multiple stepwise regression analysis.
Conclusion : We conclude that YSM and body weight were revealed as important factors that can predict spinal BMD in postmenopausal women.