Publication:

Effect of various cardiovascular risk factors on oxidative stress markers in post menopausal women

Background The objectives was to study the association between oxidative stress and various cardiovascular risk factors individually and also there cumulative effect in post-menopausal women.

Methods 50 postmenopausal women with cardiovascular risk factors like hyperglycemia, hypertension, high Body Mass Index and Hyperlipidaemia were selected and burden of various cardiovascular risk factors in them is noted and also compared with 50 age matched apparently healthy post menopausal controls. Malon-di-aldehyde (MDA), vitaminE and vitamin C were taken to assess oxidative stress status. ANOVA was applied to find the effect of individual risk factor on oxidative stress and Student’s t-test was applied to compare between cases with single risk factors and multiple risk factors.

Results It was found that though all cardiovascular risk factors increase oxidative stress significantly but none of them has significant association in comparison to others (F value 0.37, 0.88 and 0.62 for MDA, vitamin E and C respectively). However, MDA value found in cases with multiple risk factors when compared with that of cases with single risk factor was found to be statistically significant (P <0.001). Similarly, the decrease in vitamin E in cases with multiple risk factors when compared with single risk factor cases was found to be significant. (P <0.01) and vitamin C in women with multiple risk factors was decreased in comparison to women with a single risk factor and was significant (P <0.001).

Conclusions The study shows that all the risk factors are equally responsible for increase in oxidative stress and multiple risk factors increase the oxidative stress significantly in comparison to any single risk factor.