aFaculty of Medicine, Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada bBiomedical Engineering Unit, 1st Department of Cardiology, Hippokration Hospital, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
J Hypertens. 2014 Jan;32(1):100-7. doi: 10.1097/HJH.0000000000000012.
Over 100 million women currently use oral contraceptive pills (OCPs) worldwide. However, little is known about the effects of OCPs on arterial stiffness and hemodynamics. Furthermore, whether arterial stiffness and hemodynamics vary throughout the natural menstrual cycle remains controversial. Herein, we estimated the effect of the natural menstrual cycle and OCP use on arterial stiffness and hemodynamics.
Healthy, nonsmoking women, aged 18-30 years, were recruited if they had regular menstrual cycles and never used OCPs (OCP nonuser group), or were using low-dose OCPs for at least 6 months (OCP user group). Using applanation tonometry, three assessments of arterial stiffness and central and peripheral hemodynamics were performed in a randomized order: during the early follicular (days 3-6), late follicular (days 14-16), and luteal (days 22-26) phases. Within group and between group comparisons were performed using general linear models.
Sixty women (21.7 ± 2.8 years) were recruited. Compared with OCP nonusers, OCP users had significantly increased aortic and peripheral SBPs during the active OCP use, but not during the inert tablet phase. No differences in arterial stiffness were noted.
OCP use was associated with significant increases in aortic and peripheral blood pressures, but not with increased arterial stiffness. Given the widespread OCP use, future longitudinal studies are needed to confirm our findings and assess the long-term effect of OCPs on arterial stiffness and hemodynamics.
目前全球有超过 1 亿女性使用口服避孕药（OCPs）。然而，人们对 OCPs 对动脉僵硬和血液动力学的影响知之甚少。此外，OCP 使用是否会改变动脉僵硬和血液动力学仍存在争议。在此，我们评估了自然月经周期和 OCP 使用对动脉僵硬和血液动力学的影响。
招募年龄在 18-30 岁之间、无吸烟史、月经周期规律且从未使用过 OCP（OCP 未使用者组）或至少使用低剂量 OCP 6 个月以上（OCP 使用者组）的健康女性。使用平板测压法，在随机顺序下进行三次动脉僵硬和中央及外周血液动力学评估：在卵泡早期（第 3-6 天）、卵泡晚期（第 14-16 天）和黄体期（第 22-26 天）。使用一般线性模型进行组内和组间比较。
共招募 60 名女性（21.7±2.8 岁）。与 OCP 未使用者相比，OCP 使用者在 OCP 用药期间的主动脉和外周 SBP 显著升高，但在惰性片剂期则无差异。动脉僵硬无差异。
OCP 使用与主动脉和外周血压显著升高相关，但与动脉僵硬增加无关。鉴于 OCP 的广泛使用，需要进行未来的纵向研究来证实我们的发现，并评估 OCP 对动脉僵硬和血液动力学的长期影响。
