Metabolic Syndrome and Its Association with Menopausal Symptoms among Postmenopausal Women: A Cross-sectional Study

With increase in postmenopausal population, screening for MetS and its relationship with menopausal symptoms needs evaluation.

To identify the frequency of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and assess its relationship with menopausal symptoms in postmenopausal women.

This was a cross sectional study performed at a tertiary care centre in Uttarakhand India over a period of 18 months. All postmenopausal women >40 years with natural menopause included in the study sample. We used the Consensus Definition IDF and AHA/NHLBI (2009) criteria to classify subjects as having metabolic syndrome. Menopausal symptoms were assessed using Menopause Rating Scale (MRS) questionnaire.

The frequency of metabolic syndrome in our study was 34.38% (55 out of 160 patients). We observed sleeping problems (36.88%) followed by physical & mental exhaustion (33.75%) and hot flushes (33.13%) to be the commonest menopausal symptoms. Significant association was seen for MRS along with its subscales in women with metabolic syndrome (P value <.05). Significant positive correlation was observed between total Menopause rating scale scores as well as all three subscales for triglycerides in patients with metabolic syndrome.

Hyper triglyceridemia was associated with severe menopausal symptoms among postmenopausal women with MetS in our study.