|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mar 09, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Young women who think their natural levels of estrogen will buffer them against heart disease may be fooling themselves into a false sense of security, say experts in cardiology.
Until recently, heart disease has been largely regarded as simply a part of aging, particularly for men. Most attention with regard to women focuses on the postmenopausal years even now.
However, new research published in the past year or two indicates that young women, even teenagers, may be developing atherosclerosis, a hardening of the arteries that can lead to heart disease and other cardiovascular ills down the road, such as a heart attack. Culprits range from genetic factors to poor diet and stress.
"Atherosclerosis begins much younger than we used to think," Dr. Rose Marie Robertson, president of the American Heart Association and director of the Women's Heart Institute at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., told United Press International. "So it's really not true that women have this grace period where they don't have worry about the development of atherosclerosis."
While it's true that estrogen does protect against heart disease during a woman's premenopausal years by dilating blood vessels and having a positive effect on lipids, the female sex hormone is not a panacea. Stress may compromise estrogen levels, according to research presented March 8 at the American Psychosomatic Society Annual Meeting in Monterrey, Calif.
In his research on female monkeys, Jay Kaplan, a professor at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., found monkeys suffering from stress experienced drops in estrogen levels. The estrogen-deficient animals showed four times more atherosclerosis than monkeys not stressed.
Kaplan said the findings could apply to young women today: "It may well matter what goes on premenopausally with women because it sets the stage for what goes on postmenopausally with women," he said. Taking estrogen supplements during menopausal years may be too late, he suggests.
Dr. Elizabeth Ross, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association and a cardiologist in Washington, said the evidence is inconclusive on whether stress directly causes heart disease.
"Stress may bring out the symptoms," she said. "That doesn't mean the stress is the cause of the heart disease. It just may unmask a condition that's lurking in the background."
Besides stress, there are other factors that can bring on heart disease symptoms. Teenage girls and young women who smoke, eat a poor diet, and do not exercise are still placing strain on their arteries that could hurt them later in life.
In a study published last year in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, Dr. Henry McGill studied the arteries of 760 males and females, ages 15 to 34, who died from an accident, homicide or suicide. His team found a surprising 8 percent of the 30- to 34-year-old women carried plaque in their arteries.
But arterial damage, depending on the individual's lifestyle, can start much earlier. Atherosclerosis can progress "through teenage and young adulthood without any clinical symptoms," said McGill, who is senior scientist emeritus at Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in San Antonio, Tex.
He added, "If a 16-year-old girl continues with the smoking and continues with the high blood cholesterol, she's going to face problems when she's 40, 50 or 60. But it's impossible to tell a 16-year-old girl ... that they're immortal."
By then, harm done to her arteries from years of lifestyle influences may be irreversible. According to the American Heart Association, the 1998 death rate from coronary heart disease for women ages 35 to 44 -- which for most women are still premenopausal years -- was 22.9 percent for whites and doubled for African-American women, at 54.9 percent.
"What's killing these women is starting a couple decades earlier in their 20s," Kaplan said.
Yet many women, black or white, appear more concerned about their risks for breast cancer than their risks for cardiovascular problems, said Dr. Robertson. A woman's "lifetime risk of dying from breast cancer is 1 in 25," she said. "The lifetime risk of dying from heart disease or stroke is one in two."
Although genetics plays some part in heart disease, lifestyle is the biggest risk factor for young women from any ethnic background. What seem like small decisions teenage girls and young women make everyday -- whether to go for a jog or watch television, for example, or whether to smoke a cigarette or enjoy a fruit salad -- can add up and make a big impact over time.
"The good news is a good deal of heart disease in women is preventable," Dr. Roberston said, "and postponeable."
By KATRINA WOZNICKI, UPI Science News
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
SUBJECT CODE: 07000000 10000000
| Health Topics | Drug Information | Dictionaries | Directories | Other Resources |
|
U.S. National Library of Medicine, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894
Copyright and Privacy Policy, We welcome your comments. Last updated: 11 March 2001 |