Consistent ovulation may not be enough to make women healthy when approaching menopause: an update from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to test the hypothesis that consistently ovulatory premenopausal/perimenopausal women have a more favorable cardiometabolic profile than anovulatory women.
METHODS: The first four collections from the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation Daily Hormone Study (DHS) were used. DHS enrollees annually completed a daily collection of first morning voided urine for an entire menstrual cycle or up to 50 days (whichever comes first). A woman was categorized as consistently ovulatory annually (COA) if four ovulatory cycles or two to three ovulatory cycles followed by the final menstrual period (FMP) were observed. A woman was categorized as not consistently ovulatory annually (nCOA) if at least one anovulatory year was observed. Cross-sectional and longitudinal differences were compared between COA and nCOA women. Data were centered at FMP and adjusted for age and body mass index (BMI).
RESULTS: Six hundred thirty-six DHS participants (mean [SD] age, 47.3 [2.5] y; mean [SD] BMI, 27.4 [7.1] kg/m(2)) were included. Thirty-six percent of the DHS participants were COA women. On the fourth follow-up collection, COA women had lower high-density lipoprotein than nCOA women (mean [95% CI], 55.7 [54.0-57.4] vs 59.5 [57.9-61.0] mg/dL, P = 0.002, respectively), which persisted after adjustment. Among 460 women with FMP, 39% were COA women. COA women were slightly older (52.9 vs 52.0 y, P = 0.002) and had lower BMI (geometric mean, 26.1 vs 27.5 kg/m(2), P = 0.06) than nCOA women at FMP. Other cardiometabolic factors did not significantly differ by COA status through FMP.
CONCLUSIONS: Consistent ovulation across the menopausal transition does not seem to reflect superior cardiometabolic health.