Assessment of circulatory endothelin-1 level among pre- and post-menopausal rural women in Bangladesh: Result from a population-based study

Aims: Prevalence of non-communicable diseases is a challenging problem among menopausal women especially in a least developing country like Bangladesh. Recently, plasma levels of endothelin-1 or related molecules are reported to be associated with metabolic syndrome and its components. So we determined the circulatory level of endothelin-1 in Bangladeshi rural pre- and post-menopausal women and its association with various cardiometabolic risk factors. Main methods: This study is based on a community based cross-sectional survey among 1678 rural women over the age of 15. We measured plasma level of endothelin-1 by ELISAand used multipleregressions to estimate the association between circulatory endothelin-1 level and cardio-metabolic risk factors. Key findings: Endothelin-1 levels were significantly higher in post-menopausal subjects than in pre-menopausal (post-menopausal vs. pre-menopausal: 3.13 ± 0.09 vs. 2.29 ± 0.05pg/ml, p=0.001). Mean values of age, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, plasma triglyceride level, fasting plasma glucose level, and HDL cholesterol were significantly higher in post-menopause compared to pre-menopausal group (P<0.05). In both univariate and multiple regression analysis, we found that ET-1 had significant positive association withage only. Metabolic syndrome was present in 25.6% respondents and it was more prevalent among post-menopausal (39.3%) as compared to pre-menopausal (16.8%) women. Prevalence of hypertension was also greater in post-menopausal women than in pre-menopausal women (30.7% vs. 9.8%). Significance: The higher level of circulatory endothelun-1 level may be associated with various medical problems and events/syndromes of post-menopausal women in rural Bangladesh. Proper intervention strategies should be warranted among these high-risk subjects.