Effects of menopause on trends of serum cholesterol, blood pressure, and body mass index

Abstract

Background: To elucidate the impact of menopause on coronary risk factors, we determined the trends of serum cholesterol (mg/dL), blood pressure (BP, mm Hg), and body mass index (BMI, kg/m2) and investigated whether menopause affects these trends in women in Nagasaki, Japan.

Methods and results: Trends of cholesterol, systolic BP (SBP), and BMI from 9 years before menopause through 9 years after menopause in 579 women with natural menopause (ranging in age from 40.2+/-3.1 to 57.9+/-3.1 years; age at menopause, 49.4+/-3.0 years) and 134 women with surgical menopause (hysterectomy with or without bilateral oophorectomy; ranging in age from 34.9+/-4.5 to 51.7+/-5.1 years; age at menopause, 42.9+/-5.0 years) and those in 579 and 134 age- and time-matched male subjects (ranging in age from 40.1+/-3.1 to 57.8+/-3.2 years and from 35.2+/-4.5 to 51.6+/-5.0 years, respectively) in Nagasaki were determined by rearrangement of the data from 1958 to 1989 with time of menopause as the datum line. Although cholesterol tended to increase with age in both sexes, it increased significantly in women from 3 years before natural menopause to 1 year after natural menopause and from 1 year before surgical menopause to 1 year after surgical menopause. SBP and BMI did not exhibit a significant increase in relation to natural or surgical menopause. In male subjects, no significant increase of cholesterol, SBP, or BMI was observed at the age corresponding to natural or surgical menopause.

Conclusions: Natural menopause and surgical menopause exert an effect only on cholesterol, and an increase in cholesterol precedes natural menopause by 3 years and occurs at the time of surgical menopause.