Gender matters: estrogen protects from cardiac hypertrophy.

A recent study shows that estrogens protect the female heart from the hypertrophy resulting from disturbance of myocardial calcium metabolism. Estrogens can inhibit cardiac hypertrophy by counteracting hypertension, by direct effects on the heart and by triggering the release of cardioprotective factors. However, because the hypertrophic response to increased cardiac load is primarily an adaptive process, the inhibition of hypertrophy might not always be beneficial. Estrogen therapy could interfere with the utilization of the larger hypertrophic reserve in the female heart, and predispose the female heart to systolic dysfunction.