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Hot Flashes can be Detrimental to the Heart

Hot Flashes can be Detrimental to the Heart

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Highlights:
  • Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality in middle aged women
  • Women who experience hot flashes exhibited worsening of cardiovascular risk factors, including hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia and atherosclerosis
Around 70% of women experience hot flashes throughout the menopause transition. Hot flashes have long impacted women's quality of life and mental health. Mounting evidence connects them to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
The risk increases in midlife during the menopause transition, when cardiovascular disease is women's leading cause of mortality. Evidence associating hot flashes and the risk of heart disease has been found in large epidemiologic cohort studies, clinical investigations utilizing physiologic measures of vasomotor symptoms, and other studies. Women who experience hot flashes more frequently have worsening profiles of cardiovascular risk factors, including hypertension (or raised blood pressure), insulin resistance (or diabetes), dyslipidemia, and a higher chance of underlying atherosclerosis.

Hot Flashes Increase Risk of Heart Disease

As women age, having more frequent or persistent hot flashes has also been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease-related events such as myocardial infarction and stroke. More recent studies have connected vasomotor symptoms to markers of small artery disease in the brain as well as other measures of brain health.

The presentation, which will examine potential underlying physiological mechanisms that could connect vasomotor symptoms to cardiovascular risk as well as the clinical consequences of this work, will be led by Dr Rebecca Thurston from the University of Pittsburgh.

Hot Flashes Affect Physical Health

“Hot flashes are regarded as symptoms with implications for quality of life but not necessarily physical health. Accumulating research has called this long-held clinical wisdom into question and underscores that frequent or severe hot flashes may signal women who are at increased cardiovascular disease risk at midlife and beyond,” says Dr Thurston.

“This presentation will introduce the latest thinking about how women with a high burden of vasomotor symptoms may particularly benefit from targeted cardiovascular reduction efforts as they age,” says Dr Faubion, NAMS medical director.

Source-Medindia


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