August 15, 2016 – High Blood Pressure and Hot Flashes

Anchor lead: Are hot flashes and high blood pressure related? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Hot flashes are no fun for anyone, but now a new study suggests that women who have 7 or more a day, categorized as severe, may also be prone to high blood pressure.  Wen Shen, a menopause medicine expert at Johns Hopkins, says that’s overstating the data at this point, but says the study does help raise awareness.

Shen: It does definitely bring it to greater awareness for both the patient who has hypertension and to a woman who does have multiple severe hot flashes in a day.  But to draw any sort of cause and effect I think is a bit premature at this time. Until there’s more basic science physiological studies done that can correlate the two   :30

Shen says for now, the good news is that both hot flashes and high blood pressure can be effectively controlled for most.  At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.