Early menarche is associated with metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance in premenopausal Korean women

In pediatrics, identifying risk factors is important in planning the prevention of cardiovascular disease. The aim of this study was to determine whether there is an independent association between early menarche (<12 years) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) in Korean women. We analyzed data from 4463 premenopausal women from the Fourth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey-IV (2007–2009). MetS was defined by the International Diabetes Federation for Asians and insulin resistance (IR) was defined as HOMA-IR more than 3.05. The prevalence of MetS and IR was 7.9 and 15.0 %. Women (55.6 %) with MetS also showed IR. The prevalence of MetS was higher in both women with early menarche and late menarche (≥16 years) compared with the reference group (early, 12.8 %; reference, 7.0 %; late, 11.0 %, both P = 0.002). However, the odds ratio for MetS was 3.54 (95 % confidence interval (CI), 2.14–5.87) and for IR was 2.98 (95 % CI, 1.99–4.47) after adjusting for age and other confounders such as lifestyle variables, reproductive variables and sociodemographic variables only in women with early menarche