Menopausal symptoms and risk of coronary heart disease in middle-aged women: A nationwide population-based cohort study

ObjectiveTo assess the relationship between coronary heart disease (CHD) and menopausal symptoms in middle-aged women in Taiwan.Patients and methodsThe present study identified 14,340 symptomatic menopausal women without a history of CHD from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2013. A total of 14,340 age- and Charlson-comorbidity-index-score-matched asymptomatic women were used as controls. Possible comorbidity-attributable risks of CHD were surveyed to assess whether the symptomatic menopausal cohort had a higher incidence of CHD.ResultsThe incidence of CHD was higher in the symptomatic menopausal cohort than in the control cohort (17.18 vs. 12.05 per 1000 person-years). After adjustment in multivariate Cox analysis, the risk of CHD was significantly higher in the symptomatic menopausal cohort (adjusted hazard ratio = 1.344, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.262–1.43, P ConclusionThis large-scale longitudinal retrospective cohort study revealed that menopausal symptoms are an independent risk factor for CHD. Moreover, our findings indicate that HT has a nonsignificant effect on the risk of CHD.