NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Mar 14 – In postmenopausal women who have never used hormone replacement therapy, levels of total testosterone and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) are inversely related to the risk of carotid atherosclerosis, according to a report in the March 1st issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
The results suggest that in this population, "endogenous serum testosterone levels, within the normal physiological range, may be important in maintaining vascular and cardiovascular health," Dr. Sherita Hill Golden, an endocrinologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, told Reuters Health.
"In addition," she remarked, "this study confirms previous findings that high sex hormone-binding globulin levels are a marker of a more favorable cardiovascular status." SHBG has been found to be inversely related to a number of cardiovascular risk factors, although not to cardiovascular mortality, Dr. Golden and associates note in the journal.
Faced with conflicting evidence about the relationships between other endogenous hormones and cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women, the investigators conducted the first known case-control study of this issue. They selected women from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities cohort, adults ages 45 to 64 living in four US communities. None of the women selected for the substudy had ever used hormone replacement therapy.
Dr. Golden's group identified 182 postmenopausal women whose average carotid artery intimal-medial thickness, an index of carotid atherosclerosis, was in the 95th percentile or greater. The 182 controls had average intimal-medial thickness below the 75th percentile.
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