Serum sex hormone levels in postmenopausal women with hypertension.

In order to test the hypothesis that an alteration in the sex hormone milieu may underlie risk factors for myocardial infarction, fasting serum sex hormones, ie, estradiol, testosterone, free testosterone, and androstenedione, were measured in 24 hypertensive and in 19 healthy postmenopausal women. The mean serum free testosterone level (P=0.01) and the free-to-total testosterone ratio (P < 0.04) were increased in the women with hypertension. In a stepwise multiple regression analysis on the hypertensive and normotensive groups combined, with systolic blood pressure (SBP) as the dependent variable and body mass index, age, free testosterone, estradiol, insulin, and cholesterol levels as the independent variables, only free testosterone showed an independent relationship to SBP (P=0.009). The finding in the present study of an independent positive relationship of free testosterone with hypertension is consistent with a similar relationship of free testosterone with other risk factors for myocardial infarction in women found in previous studies and supports the hypothesis.