Plasma dehydroepiandrosterone and risk of myocardial infarction in women

In this study we prospectively evaluated the relationships between plasma concentrations of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-S) and subsequent myocardial infarction in women.

Using case-control sampling, we selected participants from the Nurses' Health Study cohort. Blood samples were collected from 1989 to 1990 when the women were 43 to 69 years old. During follow-up through June 1998, 239 women were diagnosed with myocardial infarction (fatal and nonfatal). We matched cases 1:2 by age, cigarette smoking status, fasting status, and month of blood collection and used conditional logistic regression to adjust for potential confounders, including anthropometric factors and dietary intake.

Baseline median (10th, 90th percentiles) concentrations of DHEA were 17.1 (4.3, 46.7) nmol/L among women who subsequently developed myocardial infarction and 16.6 (6.1, 37.9) among controls. The risk of myocardial infarction increased with plasma concentrations of DHEA and its sulfate. Women in the highest DHEA quartile had a rate ratio (RR) of 1.27 (95% CI 0.92-1.74, P for trend = 0.008) for myocardial infarction compared with those in the lowest quartile, after adjusting for covariates. The results did not vary significantly by menopausal status, postmenopausal estrogen therapy, fasting status, or age at time of blood collection. Similar relationships between concentrations of DHEA-S and risk were observed, with an RR of 1.58 (95% CI 1.13-2.21; P for trend = 0.06) for myocardial infarction in the highest vs lowest quartile.

We observed a modest positive relationship between plasma concentrations of DHEA and its sulfate and the risk of subsequent myocardial infarction among predominantly postmenopausal women.