NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Teenagers who have irregular periods
are more likely to be overweight and obese and to have early
warning signs of diabetes and heart disease than those with
regular menstrual cycles, suggests a new study. While the link
between irregular periods and heart disease and diabetes is well
established in older women, the new finding suggests that
doctors might be able to identify this risk much earlier -- and
try to do something about it. "There may be a misconception in
adolescent medicine ... that 'it takes a couple of years after
menarche to get the engine running' and hence one might not want
to be concerned about irregular adolescent menstrual cycles
until much later," said Dr. Charles Glueck, one of the study's
authors from the Cholesterol and Metabolism Center at the Jewish
Hospital of Cincinnati. "That's clearly wrong." Even in young
teenagers, very irregular menstrual cycles are not normal,
Glueck told Reuters Health, and shouldn't be ignored. He and his
colleagues followed 370