Do you want to know what cardiovascular risk are you exposed to? Obviously, monitor the classic risk factors such as hypertension, cholesterol, diabetes, overweight and the like. Then? Then, for women, an extra recommendation could become useful: towards the end of reproductive life, observe how menstrual cycles change, which tend to change in frequency and quantity with the approach of menopause. Normally, with the passing of the years, the duration of cycles tends to lengthen: well, this parameter could help to define the future cardiovascular risk profile. To launch what is for now only a suggestive hypothesis is a research that appeared in the scientific journal Menopause and conducted by scholars ofUniversity of Pittsburgh, driven by Samar ElKhoudary.
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The study, which could allow the development of “tailor-made” prevention paths for each woman, starts from a very precise observation: women who, of childbearing age, have frequent short-term cycles tend to have a longer time of exposure to high quantities of estrogen, with potentially positive repercussions in terms of protection on the heart and arteries and beyond. Not for nothing, prolonged and irregular cycles have been associated in several studies with pathologies related to the hormonal sphere, such as osteoporosis, breast cancer and obviously also cardiovascular diseases. The American experts, starting from this observation and remembering that menopause is not a switch that comes on suddenly but rather a path that is articulated over time, with well-defined phases, have tried to correlate the profile of the menstrual cycle (measured precisely through variations in duration, frequency and extent of menstrual cycles), evidence of the woman’s hormonal structure, and the future risk of developing atherosclerosis, at the basis of heart attacks, strokes and other diseases of the circulatory system.
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Almost 430 women were therefore considered in the survey, enrolled in a research that examines women between 45 and 52 years old in the USA, followed up to ten years and in any case for the postmenopausal period, with particular attention to changes in the menstrual cycle in the phase of “transition” from fertile life to menopause itself. Then we proceeded to specific analyzes to measure the health of the arteries and the risk of arteriosclerosis, through evaluations of their wall thickness or their elasticity. On the basis of what was observed, three characteristics of menstrual cycles in the approach to menopause were identified. More or less six out of ten women have maintained a menstrual cycle with a normal rhythm even before menopause, but more than 15% have had an increase in the length of it already five years before the last menstruation and more than one in five the observed two years prior to this.
By correlating these conditions with the objective measurements on blood vessels, it was seen that in women who experienced an early lengthening of the cycle two years before menopause, the measurements relating to the stiffness and thickness of the artery walls gave on average worse results than to those who have had later variations. “This last concept could be explained by the fact that an early lengthening of the menstrual cycle would be caused by a more anticipated deterioration of the estrogenic hormonal structure of the woman, which has a protective role in the health of the vessels – he comments. Sergio Costantini, professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics at the San Martino Polyclinic in Genoa. Therefore, the worsening changes in the characteristics of the vessel walls could be linked to a greater risk of developing atherosclerosis and future cardiovascular diseases. The results of the study were obtained regardless of considering other cardiovascular risk factors, such as weight, degree of physical activity and socioeconomic status of the patients. Ultimately the authors of this study have shown how the characteristics of the menstrual cycle resulting from a change in the hormonal structure of the woman who is about to go through menopause, could in the future be considered an independent factor of cardiovascular health “.
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