Overall, DeBoer’s team found, women had a rapid increase in these risk factors during the last years of premenopause and during the perimenopause transition, right before menopause.
DeBoer said it’s not possible to quantify exactly how much the risk factors increased. But “there was a continued worsening of risk factors in the years leading up to the transition,” he said.
After menopause, the changes generally plateaued, though white women continued to have drops in their HDL cholesterol levels. Black women seemed to fare slightly better in postmenopause, with a slowing in the progression of metabolic syndrome, the study reported.
The findings were published online Aug. 3 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum is director of women’s heart health at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. She said the study suggests that “the risk factors go up even sooner than we thought,” and should be a wakeup call.
Both DeBoer and Steinbaum agreed that the take-home message is to pay attention to lifestyle and modify it when needed well before menopause.
Steinbaum recommends women be sure their weight is under control, their diet is healthy and that they are getting enough exercise.
The study results should provide doctors and other health care professionals with convincing information to motivate women before they go through menopause to decrease the risk of getting health problems, DeBoer said.