The association between hypertriglyceridemic waist phenotype, menopause, and cardiovascular risk factors

The incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and its risk factors increase after menopause, thus realizing that the effect of menopause on women's health is becoming ever more vital.

The aim of this study was to investigate the menopausal effect on cardiovascular risk factors in elevated triglycerides (TG) and waist circumference (WC) phenotype, and to compare this phenotype among pre- and postmenopausal women.

A total of 4146 women were randomly selected for this study from three districts of Isfahan, Arak, and Najafabad in Isfahan Healthy Heart Program (IHHP). Anthropometric, physical, and biochemical factors were assessed using standard methods. All variables were studied based on the menopause status and the levels of TG and WC.

Twenty-five point three percent of the postmenopausal women and 9.5% of the pre-menopausal women were hyper-TG/WC phenotype; however, the highest percent (77.1%) belonged to high-WC women in the postmenopausal group. In comparison with the postmenopausal women, the premenopausal women were more physically active, with higher education level, but lower BMI, WC, waist to hip ratio, and less likely to be smoker. In postmenopausal women, biochemical factors including fasting blood sugar and lipid profiles were significantly higher than the premenopausal women. There was no significant difference for multivariate-adjusted means of cardiovascular risk factors for menopause in different phenotypes of the WC and TG groups after adjustment for age and BMI.

Hyper- TG/WC phenotype was more prevalent in postmenopausal women and menopause is not independently associated with CVD risk factors.