According to a study, women taking menopausal hormone treatment (MHT) are at risk of developing hypertension, especially those taking oral estrogen plus a progestogen such pregnane and norpregnane derivatives.
 |
| Photo: Doctor with Adult Female Patient | InStyleHealth |
The researchers used data from the Etude
Epidémiologique de Femmes de la Mutuelle Générale de l'Education (E3N), a
French prospective population-based study, to investigate the links between
different MHT formulations and incident hypertension in women.
Of the 98,995 women who took part in E3N, 49,905 (mean
age 54.2 years) had complete information on MHT use and were hypertension-free
at baseline, therefore they were included in the study.
MHT was reported by 32,183 women (64.5%). During an
average follow-up of 10.6 years, 10,173 of these women experienced incident
hypertension. Women who had ever used MHT had a modest but significantly
increased risk of incident hypertension (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 1.07, 95
percent confidence interval [CI], 1.02–1.12) when compared to nonusers,
according to a multivariable Cox analysis (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 1.07, 95
percent confidence interval [CI], 1.02–1.12).
In MHT formulations, oral estrogen use was associated
with an increased risk (adjusted HR, 1.09, 95 percent CI, 1.04–1.14 and
adjusted HR, 1.03, 95 percent CI, 0.99–1.07, respectively), though the risk
estimations were not statistically different (p=0.09 for homogeneity).
Pregnane and norpregnane derivatives were both highly
linked with hypertension risk (adjusted HR, 1.12, 95 percent CI, 1.06–1.13 and
adjusted HR, 1.06, 95 percent CI, 1.01–1.13, respectively) when concomitant progestogens were considered.
The results highlight the need of blood pressure
monitoring in MHT users.
Source: Menopause
2021;doi:10.1097/GME.0000000000001839