Menopausal Status and Metabolic Syndrome in Women in Climacteric Period Treated at a Clinic in Southern Brazil

Background: This study aims to understand the relationship between menopausal status and the presence of Metabolic Syndrome in women from 40 to 65 years, as well as to describe the distribution of each component of Metabolic Syn- drome according to sample characteristics. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 551 women treated at a clinic in southern Brazil. MetS and its components were defined according to NCEP-ATP III and menopausal status as pre, peri, and post-menopause. Prevalences of menopausal status and of MetS and its components were calculated. Estimates of prevalence ratios crude and adjusted with confidence intervals of 95% were calculated by Poisson Regression with robust variance. Demographic, socioeconomic, behavioral, and reproductive characteristics were considered as potential confounding factors in multivariable models based on a conceptual framework of MetS determination. Results: The prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome in the sample was 56.1% (CI95%: 51.9 to 60.2), being more common among older women (56 to 65 years), with low education, menarche 11 years old, with three or more pregnancies and in the post-menopausal period. In multivariate analysis, there was an increase of prevalence ratios when comparing perimenopause and post-menopause with pre-menopause;however, the confidence intervals include the unit. Regarding the analysis of isolated components in the sample, the most prevalent altered components were: hypertension (84.8%;CI95%: 81.7 to 87.8), waist circumference (66.4%;CI95%: 62.5 to 70.4) and HDL cholesterol (51.7%;CI95%: 47.5 to 55.9). There was a linear increase on mean blood glucose through menopausal status. Conclusions: Our study indicates variation on the distribution of MetS and each component according to menopausal status and other women characteristics. Future studies on MetS should also have foresight to use this type of approach to improve understanding and targeting of actions and programs focusing on women in this period of life.

Correlation of estrogen receptor alpha gene polymorphisms and bone mineral density in Chinese women with chronic periodontitis

Background Periodontitis and osteoporosis are one of the frequently encountered diseases in post-menopausal women. Estrogen receptors （ERs） regulated bone metabolism. To investigate the possible effect of ER-elpha （a） gene polymorphisms on bone mineral density （BMD） in pre- and post-menopausal Chinese women with chronic periodontitis （CP）, we provided sufficient quantitative information concerning the correlation between ER gene polymorphisms and BMD in periodontitis. Methods Sixty-five post-menopausal and eighty pre-menopausal CP women, and sixty post-menopausal healthy individuals were recruited in this study. Genomic DNA was extracted from oral mucosa swab sample of each subject by the Chelex-100 method. Determination of the ER-a polymorphisms was performed by polymerese chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism （PCR-RFLP） technique with Xbal and Pvull enzyme. The index for periodontal examination includes clinical attachment loss （CAL） and probing pocket depth （PPD）. BMD was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry （DEXA）. Results There were no significant differences between the ER-α genotypes of Pvull and Xbal and BMD in post-menopausal and pre-menopausal CP patients, respectively （P 〉0.05）. However, there was association between pre- and post-menopausal CP patients at BMD of lumbar spine L2-L4 （P=0.027） and Ward＇s BMD （P=0.004）. Furthermore, the post-menopausal CP women who carried Pvull TT genotype presented significantly lower Ward＇s BMD than the pre-menopausal CP women （P=-0.007）, meanwhile, the post-menopausal CP women who carried Xbal AA genotype presented significantly lower spine L2-L4 BMD than the pre-menopausal CP women （P=0.003）. Conclusions ER-α gene polymorphisms may be a susceptible indicator for BMD variation of lumbar spine L2-L4 and Ward in Chinese pre- and post-menopausal women patients with CP.