Chest Pain Medication Helps Treat Hot Flashes

Among menopausal women experiencing at least seven hot flashes, wearing a nitroglycerin patch may be beneficial. However the study results were mixed, while women did experience short-term improvements in moderate to severe hot flashes, the benefits //of nitroglycerin compared to placebo did not extend past 12 weeks. Some women also experienced side effects, like headaches. The paper published in JAMA Internal Medicine (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Efficacy of Continuous Transdermal Nitroglycerin for Treating Hot Flashes by Inducing Nitrate Cross-tolerance in Perimenopausal and Postmenopausal Women

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“Nitroglycerin has been used for decades to treat chest pain in patients with coronary disease because it can increase blood flow to the heart when used for only 12 hours at a time,” said lead author Alison J. Huang, MD, an internal medicine physician at UCSF Health and clinical epidemiologist.

“But lab studies suggested that if nitroglycerin is used continuously, it could prevent or suppress the type of rapid, increased blood flow under the skin that causes sensations of heat and flushing during hot flashes during menopause,” she said. “In this line of research, we repurposed a medication that has been used for close to a century for a different indication.”

Temperature Flare: Common and Uncomfortable

Medically known as vasomotor symptoms, intense flushing and sweating are among the most common hallmarks of menopause, occurring in more than two-thirds of menopausal women in the U.S. (2^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Menopause

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Hormone therapy can be highly effective at reducing or suppressing these symptoms, but there are potential risks to long-term estrogen use, including risk of some cancers, heart disease, stroke or dementia. As a result, many women have clamored for non-hormonal treatments that may pose fewer long-term health risks. So far, though, few non-hormonal medications have been found effective.

Almost all past non-hormonal treatment approaches have focused on brain mechanisms that were thought to trigger hot flashes. But researchers at UCSF decided to focus on what happens in women’s blood vessels during a hot flash.

They enrolled 141 women between 40 and 62 years old who were in either late menopausal transition or postmenopausal, and randomized them to wear either a nitroglycerin or a placebo patch for 24 hours per day. The women recorded their hot flashes at five and 12 weeks. The randomized, placebo-controlled, and double-blinded design is the gold standard for testing a clinical intervention.

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“But our study suggests that there may be promise in this overall approach to treating a common condition in midlife women. The menopause field is still lacking in effective treatment approaches that don’t involve hormones.”

References:

1. Efficacy of Continuous Transdermal Nitroglycerin for Treating Hot Flashes by Inducing Nitrate Cross-tolerance in Perimenopausal and Postmenopausal Women - (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2805584)
2. Menopause - (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/menopause)

Source-Eurekalert