Reproductive Endocrinology
Eleni Armeni 1 , Dimitrios Delialis 2 , Georgios Georgiopoulos 2 , Areti Augoulea 3 , Stefanos Stergiotis 3 , Loraina Kontou 3 , Panagiota Chatzivasileiou 3 , Demetrios Rizos 4 , George Kaparos 4 , Stavroula Baka 4 , Stavroula A Paschou 3 , Georgios Mavraganis 2 , Raphael Patras 2 , Konstantinos Panoulis 3 , Kimon Stamatelopoulos 2 & Irene Lambrinoudaki 3
12nd Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece; [email protected]; 2Laboratory of Vascular Pathophysiology, Department of Therapeutics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Alexandra Hospital, Athens, Greece; 3Menopause Clinic, 2nd Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Aretaieio Hospital, Athens, Greece; 4Hormonal Laboratory, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Aretaieio Hospital, Athens, Greece
Objective: Prolactin has been adversely associated with arterial function in postmenopausal women but its vascular effects in reproductive women are unknown. Furthermore, although both circulating prolactin levels and markers of vascular function follow menstrual cycle (MC) phases, their possible inter-correlation has not been explored.
Methods: Sixty healthy premenopausal women were evaluated in two distinct phases of their MC (follicular, F and luteal phase, L). On both occasions, we obtained blood samples to assess prolactin and sex hormone levels and measured carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV) as an index of arterial stiffness and flow mediated dilation (FMD) as an index of endothelial function.
Results: Prolactin significantly increased from follicular to luteal phase [11.9 ng/ml (7.8-15.6) vs 14.6 (9.3-22) ng/ml, P=0.002]. Increased F-prolactin was associated with lower L-FMD (P=0.016) and higher L-PWV (P=0.029) independently of traditional cardiovascular risk factors or sex hormone levels. Women with high F-prolactin more frequently presented L-PWV above reference for age and blood pressure (19% vs. 2.5%) and L-FMD below reference for our lab (30% vs 7.7%) than those with lower F-prolactin. Finally, MC changes in prolactin were associated with concomitant changes in PWV (p for interaction between the group of women with sustained high or increased prolactin vs the rest of the cohort=0.005).
Conclusion: High-normal circulating prolactin is associated with vascular dysfunction and persistently increased arterial stiffness during MC. Further research should elucidate the clinical relevance of such sustained vascular dysfunction related to increased prolactin in women during their reproductive age.
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Endocrine Abstracts
ISSN 1470-3947 (print) | ISSN 1479-6848 (online)
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