The Clinical Characteristics of Perimenopausal Women

Kim, J S; Kim, S Y; Lee, H H; Lee, M H; Moon, W S; Lee, S M; Koo, D H; Lee, K H

Abstract

PURPOSE: We have evaluated the characteristics of perimenopausal women in Korea, by the age of menopause, climacteric symptoms, bone mineral density, biochemical bone markers and lipid profiles.
METHODS
There is 233 perimenopausal women who are divided into four groups (Group I , Group II, Group III, Group IV) by age. The age distributions of Group I are below 50 years old. Those of Group II, III, IV are 51~55 years old, 56~60 years old and above 61 years old. We asked them for their climacteric symptoms and we checked them for the bone mineral density, biochemical bone markers and lipid profiles.
RESULTS
1) The mean age of menopause is 48.3+/-4.1 years old. 2) The common symptoms of the Korean perimenopausal women were backache, arthralgia, hot flashing and urinary frequency in order of frequency. 3) The bone mineral densities of climacteric women were significantly decreased by increasing age. 4) The serum alkaline phosphatase among biochemical markers of bone turnover was significantly increasing state by increasing age. 5) The levels of serum total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and triglycerides were increasing tendency, but HDL-cholesterol was decreasing tendency by increasing age. 6) There are no variation by increasing age in the serum total calcium and serum uric acid.
CONCLUSIONS
Increasing age had a great effect on bone mineral loss and lipid profiles in the climacteric women.