As if the hot flushes, mood swings and disturbed sleep weren’t miserable enough.
Now scientists say the menopause also speeds up ageing.
Research suggests the earlier a woman goes through the menopause, the faster her body deteriorates – raising her risk of an early death.
Insomnia also seems to take its toll, with post-menopausal women who toss and turn at night nearly two years older biologically than those who sleep soundly.
However, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) appears to have a rejuvenating effect.
US researcher Steve Horvath said: ‘For decades, scientists have disagreed over whether menopause causes ageing or ageing causes menopause.
Research suggests the earlier a woman goes through the menopause, the faster her body deteriorates – raising her risk of an early death
‘It’s like the chicken or the egg: which came first?
‘Our study is the first to demonstrate that menopause makes you age faster.’
Professor Horvath, of the University of California, Los Angeles, estimated the biological age of more than 3,000 women, including hundreds of Britons, by looking for tiny changes to their DNA in their blood cells.
It is already known people with more of these changes are more likely to die at any given time.
They are also at higher than average risk of lung cancer.
He found women who went through menopause earlier had more of these changes, as did women whose ovaries had been surgically removed, forcing them into menopause.
And the longer it was since a woman’s menopause, the faster her biological clock was ticking.
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Professor Horvath said: ‘We discovered menopause speeds up cellular ageing by an average of six per cent.
‘That doesn’t sound like much but it adds up over a woman’s lifespan.’
Take, for example, a woman who enters early menopause at age 42.
Eight years later, her body would be a full year older biologically than another 50-year-old woman who is just entering the menopause.
Colleague Dr Morgan Levine said: ‘On average, the younger a woman is when she enters menopause, the faster her blood ages.
‘This is significant because a person’s blood may mirror what’s happening in other parts of the body, and this could have implications for death and disease risk.’
The average British woman hits the menopause – defined as the time when her periods have stopped for 12 months – around 50.
However, one per cent of British women go through the menopause before they hit 40, with some girls hitting the menopause after just one period.
A second study, also led by Professor Horvath, linked lack of sleep in later life with faster ageing.
There, post-menopausal women with five insomnia symptoms were nearly two years older biologically than women the same chronological age with no insomnia symptoms.
Insomnia also seems to take its toll, with post-menopausal women who toss and turn at night nearly two years older biologically than those who sleep soundly
Researcher Judith Carroll said: ‘Not getting restorative sleep may do more than just affect our functioning the next day; it might also influence the rate at which our biological clock ticks.
‘In the women we studied, those reporting symptoms such as restless sleep, waking repeatedly at night, having difficulty falling asleep, and waking too early in the morning tended to be older biologically than women of similar chronological age who reported no symptoms.
‘We can’t conclude definitively from our study that the insomnia leads to the increased [biological] age, but these are powerful findings.’
It is thought that the fall in sex hormone levels that occurs at menopause speeds up the biological clock.
And the research, published in the journals Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Biological Psychiatry, showed boosting hormone levels with HRT kept some cells young.
However, Professor Horvath said this does not necessarily mean the drug should be prescribed to hold back the hands of time.
He said: ‘Unfortunately, HRT has been found to increase the risk of certain kinds of cancer and lead to small increase in heart disease.
‘In my opinion, there is a need for novel kinds of hormone therapies that provide women with benefits of HRT, while minimising the risks.’