NEW ORLEANS -- As more and more studies are being done on estrogen replacement for women after menopause, more health benefits are coming to light. Now, a local researcher was awarded a big grant to help find an even better and more beneficial way to help menopausal women prevent the top killer.
The number one killer of women is heart disease, and studies show the female hormone, estrogen, protects women and lowers their risk.
"We think estrogen is good for the cardiovascular system because women don't have cardiovascular disease as much as men, up until that menopausal transition," said Dr. Sarah Lindsey, an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at Tulane School of Medicine."So after menopause, when the ovaries no longer make estrogen, women who don't take estrogen hormone replacement, eventually have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease than men."
Dr. Lindsey and her research team were awarded the only grant from the National Institutes of Health to do more studies on a specific estrogen receptor on the cells. So far, they've found that when estrogen binds to that specific receptor, our arteries are more flexible, like they should be.
"So if we can target this receptor, we make the arteries more elastic more pliable, and that's really good for the heart and all the other organs in the body," she explained.
But that's not the only benefit.
"Estrogen is shown to be an antioxidant, so that's part of the study," said Dr. Lindsey about the collaborative effort with an expert on oxidative stress, two biomedical engineering experts and also a cardiac anesthesiologist at Wake Forest.
She is also researching why there are changes in this important estrogen receptor with time.
"We found that with aging, this receptor tends to go down," she added.
It is hoped that one day a more targeted estrogen replacement can be made that finds certain receptors and avoids others. That would help menopausal women, for the entire second half of their lives, get the best health benefits, from head to toe, from this important hormone that studies are showing affects and is needed throughout the entire body, from womb to tomb.
Dr. Lindsey was awarded a $1.9 million grant, over five years, from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute under the National Institutes of Health to conduct the estrogen study that is looking for a way to prevent heart disease in women.