If you ever watch a woman desperately fanning herself, don’t laugh because it’s not funny. Odds are – if you’re a woman – you will be there someday. Being hot and sweaty can ruin an otherwise beautiful summer day. So, think about how uncomfortable it would be to feel that way in the middle of winter at a football game, or at work during an important meeting, or, well, just about any inconvenient time. You suddenly flush, get unbearably hot and then tiny beads of sweat to appear, coating your face and neck.
Up to 70% of women going through menopause will suffer hot flashes at some point. I think the numbers are actually much higher because some women don’t have the typical symptoms – but more on that in a later blog. Hot flashes come on with a vengeance a few years before and after the last menstrual period, but sometimes they appear much earlier. Women can experience them as infrequently as once a week or more than a dozen times a day. Sometimes the nocturnal equivalent of the hot flash, the night sweat, predominates – ruining any attempts for a good night’s sleep
No matter how frequent or how severe, hot flashes can be annoying, distracting and even downright miserable. For years, and even today, we tend to regard this cardinal symptom of menopause as somewhat of a right-of-passage – one more thing that women have to put up with and not complain about. But recent research is pointing to the hot flash as something more sinister. They may be a warning sign of a heart attack, or even more alarmingly, a possible contributor to heart disease.
Medical scientists were prompted to look into this because studies revealed that women whose hot flashes started early and lasted the longest tended to have a higher risk of a heart attack. In questioning whether there is a connection, there has been an upswelling of research examining how hot flashes affect our cardiovascular system.
During a hot flash, a number of chemical messengers are sent out from our brain and adrenal glands that can affect our blood pressure, our heart rhythm, and how well our arteries deliver blood and oxygen to our cells. All of these factors can affect how fast we build up plaque on our arteries – the cholesterol clogging gunk that eventually leads to heart attacks and strokes. So, the concern is that the more frequently a woman has a hot flash, the greater the possibility she is harming her cardiovascular system. In future posts, I will be going into more detail about the studies and science behind this association, as it is a fascinating and rapidly evolving area of research.
For now, don’t panic. Hot flashes don’t mean the end of the world is near. But this new information is important to be aware of and should prompt women to discuss their hot flashes with their doctors. Rather than just grin and bear them, there are good reasons to consider treatment to minimize them. Estrogen therapy is the best remedy for hot flashes and is an FDA approved treatment for them. Most experts believe that starting estrogen at the time of menopause – and taking it up to five years – is extremely safe and confers more benefits than risks for most women.
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