Effect of menopause and sex hormones on plasma lipids

Plasma cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), HDL-cholesterol (HDL-C), LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) and estradiol, FSH, LH, testosterone, prolactin were determined in 102 cases of perimenopausal women. HDL-C HDL-C/TC, HDL-C/LDL-C decreased and LDL-C increased significantly after menopause, while TG increased in group of menopausal years beyond 11 (P less than 0.01). Postmenopausal women also showed abrupt decrease of estradiol and increase of FSH, LH, and slight decrease of prolactin (P less than 0.01), but no change in testosterone. Plasma lipids showed no correlation with sex hormones except estradiol, which was positively related with HDL-C and negatively with TC, LDL-C (P less than 0.001) but no relationship with TG (P greater than 0.05). The effects of surgical menopause was greater than that of natural menopause. This study suggested that the postmenopausal changes of plasma lipids are related to the decrease of estradiol and the ovaries should be preserved when perimenopausal women received pelvic operation whenever possible.