Menopause vs heart attack or stroke

Women, be careful out there. Not sure what you can do about it but ask your doctor.
http://updatednews.ca/2012/06/28/menopause-vs-heart-attack-or-stroke/
Women who go through menopause before the age  of 46 are twice as likely to have a heart attack or stroke as women who go  through the change later in life, a study has found.
The findings from a diverse group of  U.S.  women support results of earlier studies that had only focused on  white  women.
Lead author Dr Melissa Wellons, from the  University of Alabama at Birmingham, said women who had the menopause early  should make extra efforts to reduce their risk.
‘My advice to them would be to get your  traditional risk factors checked and do the things that we know, based on  evidence, can improve your risk of developing heart disease, like keep your  cholesterol in check and keep your blood pressure in check,’ she  said.
Wellons and her colleagues collected health  information through surveys of 2,509 women, including 331 Chinese, 641 black and  550 Hispanic women.
Close to 700 of them, or 28 per cent, had  gone through menopause early – before age 46. The average age when women stop  having periods is 51 in the U.S and 52 in  the UK.
The younger group included women who went  through menopause naturally or had a hysterectomy – surgery to remove the uterus  – which can cause early menopause.
None of the women had cardiovascular disease  at the beginning of the study. Researchers tracked them for an average of five  years to see who ended up having a heart attack or stroke.
They found 23 of the women who had gone  through menopause early, and 27 who hadn’t, suffered a heart attack or cardiac  arrest or died from heart disease, according to findings published in the  journal Menopause.
That translates to 3.3 per cent of women in  the early menopause group and 1.5 percent of the other group.
Similarly, 18 women – or 2.6 per cent – of  the early menopause group had a stroke during the study, compared to 19 (one per  cent) of women who hit menopause later.
It’s not clear why early menopause might be  linked to cardiovascular disease. Some scientists have theorised that estrogen  could play a role as the hormone drops following the change. However,  a Women’s Health Initiative study on hormone replacement therapy was stopped  early because women taking hormones after menopause were actually found to have  a higher risk of heart disease and certain cancers.
‘It could be a genetic association, (where)  genes that are related to ovarian function may also be associated with  cardiovascular disease, and those two things are related but not through a  common causal pathway,’ Dr Wellons added.
She said more research is needed before  doctors can know how to intervene to try to reduce the higher heart disease risk  among women with early menopause.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death  among U.S. women. Combined with strokes, it is responsible for almost one in  three deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and  Prevention.