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Ladies, Get an Early Start on Preventing Heart Disease and Stroke
May 3, 2001 -- As a woman, the best time to begin to protect yourself from heart attacks and strokes may be in the years just prior to menopause.
New findings suggest important changes in blood pressure and cholesterol may be taking place during those years when women are still relatively young, and healthy. Experts say the evidence points to the need for doctors to get a handle on these conditions as early as possible.
Karen A. Matthews, PhD, a University of Pittsburgh researcher who studied women before and after menopause, says the findings could change the way women are evaluated and treated years before they have any apparent risk factors for heart disease or stroke.
If you have questions or concerns about menopause, before and after, check out WebMD's Women's Health: Menopause board moderated by Joan Starker, MSW, PhD.
The study appears in the May issue of Stroke.
Matthews and colleagues evaluated 372 women before menopause and again one year and five years after their menstrual cycles had stopped. The women underwent tests to measure their cholesterol, blood pressure, glucose, body weight, and body mass index, or BMI. Most of the women also had an ultrasound procedure performed of their neck arteries to look for blockages that signal atherosclerosis, a condition that increases the risk of heart attack and stroke by narrowing the arteries.
The changes in cholesterol and body weight that occurred from the years just prior to menopause -- the premenopause period -- to the first year after menopause were greater than those that occurred in the first five years after menopause. Women who had higher cholesterol and blood pressure and increased body weight during premenopause had more blockages in their arteries than women who experienced changes in their cholesterol or blood pressure after menopause.
Matthews, who is a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology, says the results indicate that doctors should be looking at women earlier for signs of cholesterol or blood pressure problems and starting treatment before symptoms even begin.
"Prevention efforts should begin when a woman is in her 40s or even younger, so we don't have to deal with lots and lots of people who are very ill later in life," she says in a press release issued by the American Heart Association.
The study is one of the few to point out the lack of information with regard to young, relatively healthy women who have not yet gone through menopause, says Gretchen E. Tietjen, MD. She tells WebMD that while plenty of studies have accumulated important data on postmenopausal women, it is becoming clearer that similar efforts should be focused on premenopausal women.
"This is really a case where we are talking about relatively healthy young people and we're just trying to keep them healthy in the long run," says Tietjen, associate professor and chair of neurology at the Medical College of Ohio, in Toledo.
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