Until recently, heart disease has been largely regarded as simply a part of aging, particularly for men. Most attention with regard to women focuses on the postmenopausal years even now. However, new research published in the past year or two indicates that young women, even teenagers, may be developing atherosclerosis, a hardening of the arteries that can lead to heart disease and other cardiovascular ills down the road, such as a heart attack.
Culprits range from genetic factors to poor diet and stress.
So it's really not true that women have this grace period where they don't have worry about the development of atherosclerosis. While it's true that estrogen does protect against heart disease during a woman's premenopausal years by dilating blood vessels and having a positive effect on lipids, the female sex hormone is not a panacea. Calif. In his research on female monkeys, Jay Kaplan, a professor at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., found monkeys suffering from stress experienced drops in estrogen levels. The estrogen-deficient animals showed four times more atherosclerosis than monkeys not stressed. Taking estrogen supplements during menopausal years may be too late, he suggests.