Recents list keeps being cleared

I use Office 365 on Windows-10. Several times in the last year or so when I opened Word or other Office app, I have found that the "Recents" list has been cleared, though I took no action to do so. I suspect this may be happening when Office is updated, but I'm not sure. Can I prevent the clearing from happening? It is causing me a considerable amount of work to track down the documents that were on the "Recents" list.