Up to 70 percent of women experience hot flashes and night sweats
during menopause, said Rebecca Thurston, Ph.D., associate professor of
psychiatry, Pitt School of Medicine.
“We used to think these were just annoying symptoms that many women
just tried to endure,” she said. “However, our research is now
suggesting that for some women, hot flashes might indicate adverse
changes in the blood vessels during midlife that might not be medically
benign over time.”
At the meeting, Dr. Thurston will discuss preliminary findings from
her research that indicate early onset of hot flashes is associated
with dysfunction of the endothelium, which is the lining of blood
vessels. Endothelial dysfunction was measured by assessing flow mediated
dilation (FMD), a noninvasive ultrasound measure of how well the vessel
dilates in response to pressure on the wall of the blood vessel.
In one study of 189 healthy women approaching or in menopause, the
researchers found those who had hot flashes before age 52 were more
likely to have lower FMD values, suggesting adverse endothelial changes.
Similarly, in a second study of 104 postmenopausal women with signs of
heart disease, those who reported first having their hot flashes at or
before age 42 were more likely to have lower FMD values.
“More work needs to be done to confirm our findings and to
understand the reasons why early hot flashes are associated with
endothelial dysfunction,” Dr. Thurston said. “But these findings could
give us a way to predict who might be at greater risk for heart disease
so that we can target these women for early prevention.”