Protecting heart health after menopause

Dr. Glen Pyle’s discoveries will reduce heart disease in older women

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Dr. Glen Pyle Heart & Stroke researcher

For the first half of their lives, women face a lower risk of dying from heart disease than men do. After menopause, that difference disappears. But the reasons why are a mystery.

For a long time, scientists believed lower estrogen levels explained increased cardiovascular risk, and that replacing it would restore its protective benefits.

Hormone replacement therapy didn’t always produce benefits, something that raised questions for Dr. Glen Pyle, a molecular cardiology researcher at the University of Guelph and the IMPART Investigator Network at Dalhousie Medicine. With support from Heart & Stroke donors, he and his research team got to work looking for answers.

Focusing in on molecular changes taking place in heart cells during menopause, they discovered:

• Cardiac changes start before symptoms like hot flashes do.

• Although the heart functions normally after menopause, some molecular pathways within the cells start to change, leading to inflammation and cell destruction — making the heart more vulnerable to heart attack, arrhythmias, and heart failure.

The team is now exploring targeted estrogen therapy in early menopause before heart changes occur. Such therapy has potential to reduce the risk of heart attack, limit the damage if a heart attack occurs, and reduce the risk of heart failure down the road.

Dr. Pyle is very grateful to Heart & Stroke supporters: “Without donations, the work wouldn’t happen.”

Research made it possible: A new heart at 14

Until the day of his heart transplant, Olivier Lanthier had never known life with a healthy heart. Diagnosed with heart failure at birth, he needed three open-heart surgeries before age five, when he received a mechanical valve. Throughout childhood, he often experienced a speeding heart rate. Then, at age 14, during a routine lung test, Olivier pushed past his limit and his heart stopped.

Three cardiac arrests and one pacemaker later, Olivier’s organs were starting to fail as he waited in desperation for a heart transplant. Finally he got the news: there was a heart for him.

With his courage and will to live, Olivier, now 18, is beating heart disease: “For you, it’s just everyday life. For me, it’s a life without restrictions, where anything is possible.”