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Menopause Not Causing Increased Heart Problems for Women

For years doctors have attributed raised rates of heart disease in women after menopause as somehow linked to hormonal changes. However researchers at Johns Hopkins announced yesterday that current research shows age alone is the main factor.

Author: Heather MacGibbon
Date: Sep 14, 2011 - 6:53:11 AM

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For years doctors have attributed raised rates of heart disease in women after menopause as somehow linked to hormonal changes. However researchers at Johns Hopkins announced yesterday that current research shows age alone is the main factor.

"Our data shows there is no big shift toward higher fatal heart attack rates after menopause," says Dhananjay Vaidya, Ph.D., the studies leader at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "What we believe is going on is that the cells of the heart and arteries are aging like every other tissue in the body, and that is why we see more and more heart attacks every year as women age. Aging itself is an adequate explanation and the arrival of menopause with its altered hormonal impact does not seem to play a role."

While rates of fatal heart disease are different for men and women, this difference may lay in different rate of cellular changes in men and women when cells replicate. Cell aging may hold the key -- most notably the concept of shrinking telomere length -- could account for some of the gender differences, Vaidya suggested when discussing different heart disease rates.  

Telomeres are found at the end of each chromosome in the body and act as shields that protect important genes from assault. Telomeres shrink every time they are copied, which occurs every time cells divide. As telomeres get shorter, there is the chance that the genes at the end of the chromosome will get damaged, and if they are, they will not recover, leading to the damaging effects of aging.

Previous studies show that telomere lengths are similar in male and female babies, but become significantly shorter in young adult men as compared to young adult women, which could account for the finding that men have increased risk of cardiovascular mortality at younger ages. At later ages, telomeres shorten at similar rates in men and women, which could account for their similar heart disease mortality rate increases during older ages.


Staff Writers Science Daily. “No Link between Menopause and Increased Risk of Fata Heart, Research Suggests” In Science Daily Sept 6, 2011. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110906085427.htm Ibid.
Aubert, Geraldine and Peter M. Lansdrop. “Telomeres and Aging” in American Physiological Society Journal Vol. 88, no. 2 http://physrev.physiology.org/content/88/2/557.full#BIBL
Staff Writers Science Daily. “No Link between Menopause and Increased Risk of Fata Heart, Research Suggests” In Science Daily Sept 6, 2011. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110906085427.htm

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