Dr. Mary Claire Haver

So remember, estrogen affects the liver and affects how we make cholesterol.

So it drives up our ApoB.

It can actually drive up LP little a. In men, LP little a appears to be more genetic, but we see an increase in LP little a. These are specific, very small changes.

cholesterol particles that have a much higher association to the risk of atherosclerotic disease and cardiovascular disease than just your total cholesterol.

So in our clinic, we are doing deeper dives into lipid panels on patients, not getting just the standard lipid panel.

We're getting all these extra markers so we can counsel our patients appropriately.

Also, there's something called vascular flexibility.

So your blood vessels in the presence of estrogen are more flexible.

They're more squishy.

They're more able to handle the blood passing through.

However, when estrogen levels decline, we lose that flexibility and the arteries actually become stiffer, which makes our blood pressure rise.

So those of you, including myself, who have seen a rise in your blood pressure, you enjoyed this nice normal blood pressure most of your life, and then all of a sudden you're going through menopause and you see it rise, it's not because you did anything wrong.

This is a predictable biological consequence of this fluctuation and decline of estrogen levels.

And it is not fair to you that you did not know this and that this is blindsiding you at this time if you're seeing it happen.

This episode of Unpaused is brought to you by Alloy Health.

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