Overall Risk of Death Not Increased With Premenstrual Disorders

WEDNESDAY, May 29, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Women with premenstrual disorders (PMD) do not have increased risk of early death overall, but the risks of suicide and the risks for women with diagnosis before 25 years are elevated, according to a study published online May 28 in JAMA Network Open.

Marion Opatowski, Ph.D., from the Institute of Environmental Medicine at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and colleagues examined the associations of PMDs with overall and cause-specific mortality in a nationwide, population-based matched cohort study. Participants included women of reproductive age, with a first diagnosis of PMD between Jan. 1, 2001, and Dec. 31, 2018; 67,748 women with clinically diagnosed PMDs were matched with 338,740 unaffected women.

The researchers found that there were 367 deaths among women with PMDs during a mean follow-up of 6.2 years, and 1,958 deaths among women without PMDs (rates, 8.4 and 9.1 deaths, respectively, per 10,000 person-years). Women with PMDs had increased risk of death due to non-natural causes, especially suicide, compared with unaffected women (hazard ratios, 1.59 and 1.92, respectively), but did not have an increased risk of overall mortality. Higher all-cause mortality and mortality from both suicide and natural causes were seen for women who received a diagnosis before age 25 years (hazard ratios, 2.51, 3.84, and 2.59, respectively).

“This supports the importance of careful follow-up for young women with PMDs and highlights the need to develop suicide prevention strategies for all women with PMDs,” the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text