Why does women’s hearts react differently to hypertension? A team of Australian researchers has just provided an unexpected response element.
Cardiovascular diseases remain the first cause of mortality in women, often sub-diagnosed and poorly understood. But a team of Australian researchers has just lifted the veil on a mechanism that could well change our current vision.
A hormone known to all, theesturogenesturogenwould play a key role in protecting the female heart. This discovery which has been the subject of a publication in Communication Biologyopens a promising path to treatments designed specifically for women.
A well -known hormone, a still mysterious protein
Led by the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS), the study reveals that estrogens, female sex hormones, increase the levels of a protein, called annexine-a1 (anxa1).
Researchers had already identified the key role of this protein in the regulation of the blood pressureblood pressure. This time, they observed that in private female mice of Anxa1, thehypertensionhypertension caused much more serious lesions in the heart and vessels.
In other words, estrogens activate a natural defense mechanism against the deleterious effects of blood pressure. This direct link between female hormone and cardiac protection had never been formally demonstrated.
A major advance to understand the heart health of women
This result answers a question: why some women seem to be better resisting the complications of hypertension before menopause? The answer could well reside in this estrogen-anxa1 duo, active as long as the body naturally produces hormones.
« It is urgent to discover the specific mechanisms at the origin of hypertension and its cardiovascular complications in women, a population still little studied “, Underlines the Dr Chengxue Helena Qinco-author of the study.
She recalls that women have long been underrepresented in research on cardiovascular diseasescardiovascular diseaseswhich delayed the development of suitable treatments.
Towards targeted treatments for hypertensive women?
This discovery opens up concrete therapeutic perspectives. The team now plans to test drugs capable of imitating or stimulating the action of the ANXA1. Objective: to offer additional protection to hypertensive women, especially after menopause, when estrogen levels fall naturally.
Ultimately, this track could lead to more personalized cardiovascular medicine, respectful of gender differences. And finally respond to a reality still too often overlooked: the hearts of women does not work quite like that of men.