Ovary insufficiency linked to higher chances of autoimmune disorder: study

Women with premature ovarian insufficiency have over 2.5 times higher risk of autoimmune disorders, impacting overall health and quality of life.

Women whose ovaries have prematurely stopped producing eggs are over 2.5 times more likely to have an autoimmune disorder, such as rheumatoid arthritis and hyperthyroidism, according to a study.

This finding could help analysing the biological processes that lead to the development of the ovary-linked condition in different autoimmune conditions, the researchers said.

Premature ovarian insufficiency is a condition in which malfunctioning ovaries have stopped producing eggs in women younger than 40 years. The menstruation cycle becomes irregular and then stops, and some women can experience menopausal symptoms. About 1 to 3.5 per cent of women around the world are estimated to be affected, according to previous studies.

Using health insurance records, researchers, including those at the University of Oulu in Finland, followed nearly 20,000 women, about 4,000 of whom were diagnosed with premature ovarian insufficiency between 1988 and 2017. Diagnoses of autoimmune diseases between 1970 and 2017 were included in the analysis.

An autoimmune condition is one in which the body's immune system mistakenly starts attacking healthy tissues.

Among the 4,000 affected women, the researchers found that the risk of autoimmune conditions ranged from nearly double for over-active thyroid glands (hyperthyroidism) to about 26 times for polyglandular autoimmune diseases -- rare conditions of the hormone or endocrine system.

“The prevalence of having at least one severe autoimmune disease in women with premature ovarian insufficiency was 5.6 per cent, with (a likelihood) of 2.6 when compared to (the general population)," the authors wrote in the study published in the journal Human Reproduction.