More than half of women in their early 30s are suffering ‘moderate’ or ‘severe’ menopause symptoms, research has suggested.
This is despite most women waiting until their 50s to seek hormone treatment—leading experts to fear thousands are ‘suffering in silence’.
It also runs contrary to British data suggesting the earliest stages of the menopause, called the perimenopause, typically starts when women turn 47.
The menopause marks the end of a woman’s fertile life when periods stop, and the ovaries stop producing the female hormone oestrogen.
But fertility starts to wane even during the perimenopause as hormones fluctuate, meaning women in their 30s suffering these symptoms may struggle to conceive.
Experts from the University of Virginia Health System also found younger women were more likely to report mental health signs of the menopause such as brain fog.
These took hold many years before physical symptoms such as hot flushes and vaginal dryness.
In the study experts, working with period tracking app Flo, asked almost 4,500 women to take a standard medical menopause symptoms test.
More than half of women in their early 30s are suffering ‘moderate’ or ‘severe’ menopause symptoms like brain fog, a American study suggests
This test asks women to score their experience of signs of the change, like hot flushes, on a zero to four scale.
A zero indicates they are not suffering the symptom while a four means they consider it to be severe, with total scores tallied at the end.
Analysing the results the authors found 55.4 per cent of women aged 30 to 35 who took the test (1,127 women) scored high enough to meet the criteria for suffering moderate or severe menopause symptoms.
This figure rose to 64.3 per cent among women aged 36 to 40, still well before the average age of the perimenopause.
But despite this over 9 in 10 women from both age groups had not seen a medic about their potential menopause or perimenopause symptoms.
When broken down by symptom type the authors, who published their findings in the journal Women’s Health, found psychological symptoms of the menopause, such as anxiety, depression and irritability were more common among young women.
Scientists said the severity of these symptoms peaked among women aged 41 to 45 before largely disappearing among women aged 56 and over.
In contrast more commonly known physical signs of the change like hot flushes and vaginal dryness were highest among women aged 51 and older.
Study co-author Dr Jennifer Payne, an expert in reproductive psychiatry at University of Virginia Health System, said the women and medics should take note of the findings.
‘This study is important because it plots a trajectory of perimenopausal symptoms that tells us what symptoms we can expect when and alerts us to the fact that women are experiencing perimenopausal symptoms earlier than we expected,’ she said,
‘Physical and emotional symptoms associated with perimenopause are understudied and often dismissed by physicians.’
Liudmila Zhaunova, director of science at Flo, added that the findings warranted further research to help these young women get the treatment they needed.
‘We had a significant number of women who are typically thought to be too young for perimenopause tell us that they have high levels of perimenopause-related symptoms,’ she said.
The study had several limitations, one being that as the data was gathered through a survey there is no way of verifying what the women reported, and another was its small sample size.
There is also the potential that menopause symptoms like anxiety and depression or bladder issues were being caused by an unrelated medical problem.
Perimenopause is defined by the NHS as women have menopause symptoms but are still having periods.
Once a woman has stopped having periods for a full year, she is then experiencing menopause.
The health service says both menopause and perimenopause symptoms, which include mood swings, brain fog, hot flushes can be incredibly disruptive to a woman’s life potentially affecting her relationships and work.
Menopause is a normal part of ageing and is marked by levels of the sex hormone oestrogen dropping.
It typically starts between the age of 45 and 55 for most women.
However, it can occur earlier, naturally for a minority of women, and for some as a result of other health problems and treatments, like those for cancer.
Some women go through this time with few, if any, symptoms.
Others suffer from hot flushes, sleeping difficulties, mood swings and brain fog, which can last for months or years and might change over time.
Women are advised to see their GP if their symptoms are severe and disrupt their day-to-day life.
The British Menopause Society says the average age for women to start experiencing perimenopause symptoms is 47.
