PMS Linked to Higher Risk of High Blood Pressure

Lisa Franchi December 02, 2015

Researchers found that women who suffer from headaches, fatigue and other symptoms of premenstrual syndrome have an increased risk of developing high blood pressure in the future.

In the study, women who had PMS symptoms were 40 per cent more likely to develop high blood pressure over the next 20 years, compared to those who experienced few menstrual symptoms. High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.

Researchers looked at the relationship between PMS and the risk of high blood pressure in about 1,250 women who developed clinically significant PMS between 1991 and 2005, and nearly 2,500 women with few menstrual symptoms.

The women were between 25 and 42 years old at the beginning of the study and the researchers followed them for six to 20 years. At the start of the study, and every two years afterward, the women were asked whether they had received a diagnosis of high blood pressure from their doctors in the past two years.

The researchers found that the link between high blood pressure and PMS was strongest among women who were younger than 40. The women in this age group who had PMS were three times as likely to also have high blood pressure, compared to women in the same age group who did not have PMS.

"To my knowledge, this is the first large, long-term study to suggest that PMS may be related to risk of chronic health conditions in later life," says study author Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson, an epidemiologist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

"We are seeing hypertension increase in women younger and younger," said Dr Suzanne Steinbaum, director of Women’s Heart Health at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, who was not involved in the new study. "And now we are really honing in on who is at risk for high blood pressure and subsequent heart disease."

Going through therapies that can reduce the severity of premenstrual syndrome may also help lower the risk of hypertension in the future. The new findings were published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Source of this article:

Got PMS? You Might Have High Blood Pressure In The Future, Says Study