Washington, Sep 6 (IANS) Ageing alone explains increasing number of deaths among women, which has nothing to do with the hormonal impact of menopause, researchers say.


The findings by Johns Hopkins University researchers could have implications on how heart health is assessed in pre-menopausal women, who were previously believed to be at negligible risk of death from heart attack.

"Our data shows there is no big shift toward higher fatal heart attack rates after menopause," says study leader Dhananjay Vaidya, assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the British Medical Journal reports.

"What we believe is going on is that the cells of the heart and arteries are ageing like every other tissue in the body, and that is why we see more and more heart attacks every year as women age," he said, according to a Johns Hopkins statement.

"Ageing itself is an adequate explanation and the arrival of menopause with its altered hormonal impact does not seem to play a role," he added.

Menopause clearly plays a role in other diseases in women, the researchers found. For example, Vaidya says, the rate of breast cancer mortality decelerates at menopause, probably because of hormonal changes.

Vaidya's team analyzed mortality statistics for people born in England, Wales and the US between 1916 and 1945.

They followed similar groups of people as they aged and found that at the time of menopause in each group, there were no increases in female mortality rates above and beyond the steady curve that is expected from ageing, he says.

Vaidya says his team also found that the number of women who die each year from heart disease increases exponentially at roughly eight percent per year.

Absolute mortality -- the actual number of deaths -- increases at all ages with no abrupt change at menopause.