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Heart fat volume related to menopausal status
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Compared with premenopausal and early perimenopausal women regardless of age, obesity and other covariates, greater volumes of cardiovascular fat were found among late perimenopausal and postmenopausal women, according to recent study findings published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
“To the best of our knowledge, no previous study has evaluated whether [cardiovascular fat] is associated with menopausal status or endogenous sex hormone concentrations in women at midlife,” the researchers wrote.
Samar R. El Khoudary , PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, and colleagues evaluated data from the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) Heart Cardiovascular Fat Ancillary Study on 456 women (mean age, 50.75 years) who were either pre-/early perimenopausal (62%) or late peri-/postmenopausal (38%) to determine the association between CV fat depots, menopausal status and endogenous sex hormones.
Samar R. El Khoudary
Researchers determined menopausal status and measured CV fat volumes simultaneously with and endogenous sex hormones. Baseline circulating estradiol levels were acquired a median of 4.8 years before CV fat measurement. Main outcomes measures included volumes of CV fat (epicardial, paracardial, total heart and aortic perivascular adipose tissues).
Compared with pre-/early perimenopausal participants, late peri-/postmenopausal participants had 9.88% more epicardial, 20.72% more paracardial and 11.69% more total heart adipose tissues (P < .05). However, aortic perivascular adipose tissues were not associated with menopausal status. CV fat depot volumes were similar among all participants (all P .05).
Greater volumes of paracardial and total heart adipose tissue were associated with lower estradiol concentrations (P < .05). Compared with participants with the least reduction in estradiol from baseline, those with the greatest reduction had higher levels of paracardial adipose tissue (P = .02).
“The incidence of CVD, the leading cause of death in women, increases after the age of 50,” El Khoudary told Endocrine Today. “Identifying potential risk factors for CVD development in women at midlife will help focus prevention strategies. Previous studies suggest that reducing heart fat is feasible through weight loss or weight management, but these studies only looked at small numbers of people and there have been no clinical trials linking cardiovascular outcomes with heart fat changes due to weight management interventions. Clearly there is a need for larger scale studies to determine the best intervention strategies to help post-menopausal women reduce fat near the heart.” – by Amber Cox
Disclosure: El Khoudary reports receiving grants from the American Heart Association. Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
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