Hormone Therapy Linked to Heart Disease Precursor
Posted By Clod on July 26, 2011
The use of birth control pills or hormone replacement therapy is associated with an increased risk of microalbuminuria, a build-up of protein in the urine that is a sign of blood vessel damage and a risk factor for heart disease, according to a new report.
Microalbuminuria has not been linked previously with the use of estrogens or progestins, the hormones contained in birth control pills and hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
Dr. Wilbert M. T. Janssen and colleagues from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, hypothesized that measuring microalbuminuria might help distinguish between women who faced an increased risk of heart disease with hormonal therapy and those who did not.
To investigate, they studied the association between birth control pills or HRT and microalbuminuria in 3,305 women, ages 28 to 75, participating in the Prevention of Renal and Vascular End Stage Disease study.
In premenopausal women, use of the birth control pill was more common among women with microalbuminuria than in those without protein in their urine, the authors report in the September 10th Archives of Internal Medicine.
In postmenopausal women, there was a similar, though insignificant, tendency toward greater use of HRT in the microalbuminuria group, the report indicates.
Oral contraceptive use in premenopausal women increased the risk of microalbuminuria by 90%, the researchers note, whereas HRT doubled the risk of microalbuminuria in postmenopausal women.
Postmenopausal women who used HRT for more than 5 years faced an increased risk of microalbuminuria compared with women who used HRT for fewer years. In premenopausal women, increasing estrogen content tended to enhance the risk of having protein in the urine.
Because microalbuminuria is an early sign of increased heart disease risk, women who use estrogen may face an increased risk of illness or death from heart disease, the authors infer.
“We did not look at cardiovascular mortality and morbidity yet,” Taco B. M. Monster, one of the researchers, told Reuters Health, “and therefore cannot say if differences in cardiovascular mortality and morbidity match our microalbuminuria findings.”
The researcher added, “This is (just) one observational study. Before we start making decisions (about birth control pills or HRT) or change things, I would like to see other investigators finding similar results.”
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