Postmenopausal Estrogen Use and Heart Disease Risk Factors in the 1980s

Postmenopausal estrogen use and risk factors for heart disease were assessed in 1057 women, aged 50 to 79 years, who were enrolled in an ongoing study of residents of an upper-middle-class community. From 1984 through 1987, thirty-one percent of the women reported current estrogen use, a rate equivalent to that determined in one survey of the same population done from 1972 through 1974. Compared with nonusers, current users did not have a more favorable cardiac risk factor profile before use, but users were more likely to have had a surgically induced menopause and to have been estrogen users during the survey done from 1972 through 1974. Similar to our earlier findings, current estrogen use was associated with lower weight, diastolic blood pressure, and fasting plasma glucose level than nonuse. Levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol were inversely related to estrogen dose; levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol were positively related to the duration of use. In this cross-sectional study, blood pressure and lipoprotein and plasma glucose levels were similar in women receiving estrogen alone and in women receiving combination estrogen and progestin therapy.