High blood pressure during pregnancy and hot flashes may be linked, study finds

Overall, high blood pressure during pregnancy and severe menopausal symptoms are both risk factors for cardiovascular disease in women, said Dr. Stephanie Faubion, director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Women’s Health and medical director of the North American Menopause Society. Yet just because they’re related doesn’t mean one really causes the other.

“But they both seem to be markers for heart disease, and I think we’ve just seen that they’re related and that women who have one are more likely to have another,” added Faubion. Heart disease is the leading cause of death among American women.

“We’re starting to understand that women have these unique things that they go through that can put them in a different category for heart disease risk and the discovery that two of them seem to be related to each other was definitely an interesting finding, “she said, adding,” We know that hormone therapy reduces or eliminates hot flashes. We don’t know if it changes the risk. “

Hypertension during pregnancy and symptoms of menopause

The new study included data from the medical records of 2,684 women aged 40 to 65 who reported being near menopause or postmenopause during consultations at the Mayo Clinic for Women’s Health campuses in Rochester, Minnesota, and Scottsdale, Arizona, between 2015 and 2019..

The Mayo researchers analyzed this data, looking closely at each woman’s pregnancy history and menopausal symptoms.

They found that 18.7% of women who had never been pregnant and almost 20% of those without a history of hypertension during pregnancy reported having severe or very severe hot flashes.

And more than 23% of women who had a history of hypertension during pregnancy reported having had severe or very severe hot flashes.

The researchers found that 7.8% of women using hormone replacement therapy who had no history of pregnancy reported severe or very severe hot flashes. Among women taking HRT, 13.8% of those who did not have hypertension during pregnancy had bad hot flashes.

But women who took HRT and who had also suffered from high blood pressure during pregnancy had the highest risk of severe hot flashes: 27% of them.

“ We used to think of hot flashes as transient and benign … they are neither ”

Most of the women in the study were white, employed, and had partners. More research is needed to determine if similar results would emerge in a more diverse group of women. Additionally, some information on a history of hypertension in women during pregnancy and symptoms of menopause has been self-reported and therefore subject to recall bias.

While more research is needed, Faubion said the new findings are helping shed light on what severe menopause symptoms might mean for some women.

“Women who are having a rough time during menopause with a lot of hot flashes need to say, ‘You know what – could this be little more than just a nuisance?’” Said Faubion.

“We used to think of hot flashes to be transient and mild, but now we are finding out that they’re neither,” she said. “Hot flashes last an average of seven to nine years and for a third of women last a decade or more, and we are also learning that they are not so mild, that they are associated with certain risks.”

This is not the first time that a link has been found between hypertension during pregnancy and certain symptoms of menopause.