ABSTRACT
Previous studies showed that early age at menarche is associated with increased risk of metabolic syndrome. However, the definition of early menarche at these studies was based on background data in the communities at which these studies was carried on. The aim of this work is to determine a cutoff for age at menarche discriminating presence or absence of metabolic syndrome in overweight/obese premenopausal women. This study included 204 overweight/obese women. Metabolic syndrome was defined according to NCEP-ATP III (National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III) criteria. Of a total 204 participants, 82 (40.2%) had metabolic syndrome. By using receiver operating characteristic analysis, age at menarche ≤12.25 year discriminated individuals with from those without metabolic syndrome. The area under the curve was 0.76 (95% confidence interval, 0.70 to 0.83). Sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive value, and positive predictive value were 82%, 70%, 85%, and 64%, respectively. Age at menarche ≤12.25 years predicts the presence of metabolic syndrome in overweight/obese women.