Women with Severe Night Sweats and Hot Flushes are More Likely to Have Heart Disease

Women with hot flushes and night sweats are linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, reports a new study. The findings of the study are published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.//

School of Public Health Ph.D. student Dr. Dongshan Zhu has found women of any age who experience hot flushes and night sweats, also known as vasomotor symptoms or VMS, are more likely to experience non-fatal cardiovascular events.

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‘Menopausal vasomotor symptoms such as hot flushes and night sweats have been linked to unfavorable risk factors and surrogate markers of heart disease.’

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"Until now, it's been unclear if VMS is associated with cardiovascular disease, but now we know it to be true," Dr. Zhu said.

"Further, VMS before menopause increases a woman's chance of cardiovascular events by 40 percent."

Dr. Zhu also found that cardiovascular events' risk was more related to the severity of the hot flushes and night sweats than the frequency or duration.

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"We found that women with severe VMS were more than twice as likely to experience a non-fatal cardiovascular event compared with women who had no symptoms," he said.

Dr. Zhu used data from InterLACE, a major collaboration of 25 studies of more than 500,000 women around the world.

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Senior author on the study Professor Gita Mishra said the findings might have important clinical implications.

"This research helps to identify women who are at a higher risk for the development of cardiovascular events and who may need close monitoring in clinical practice," Professor Mishra said.

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Source-Eurekalert