A randomised placebo controlled trial of the effects of tibolone on blood pressure and lipids in hypertensive women

Abstract

The effects of hormone replacement therapy in hypertensive women are controversial. This randomised placebo controlled trial assessed the effect of tibolone 2.5 mg on blood pressure and fasting plasma lipids in 29 hypertensive postmenopausal women over 6 months using a 2:1 randomisation to tibolone. The primary clinical end-point was mean office blood pressure. At 6 months systolic blood pressure declined by 5.30 ؎ 2.87% vs 4.94 ؎ 3.37% whilst diastolic blood pressure declined 5.38 ؎ 2.65% vs 0.85 ؎ 3.69% on tibolone and placebo respectively. These differences were not statistically significant. Triglycerides decreased by 33.3 ؎ 6.1% vs 7.6 ؎ 7.9% (P Ͻ 0.01) and

Administration of tibolone decreases 24h heart rate but not blood pressure of post-menopausal women

“…Data on the effect of tibolone on blood pressure were obtained as secondary end-points in several clinical studies [10,13,14], and in two studies specifically dedicated to the effect of tibolone on blood pressure of hypertensive [15] and diabetic [16] post-menopausal women. All the studies showed a neutral effect of tibolone in the control of office blood pressure.…”

“…An increase of resting forearm blood flow, and its response to anoxic exercise seems to be induced by tibolone [10], although recent reports did not show an amplification of endothelium-dependent vasodilatation during its administration [11]. Office blood pressure, whose elevation is responsible for about 50% of the cardiovascular risk [12], is not affected by tibolone [10,[13][14][15][16]. Ambulatory monitoring allows a better definition of blood pressure, heart rate [17] and their reduction during the night, whose extent represents an additional risk factor for cardiovascular diseases [18,19].…”

Tibolone decreases Lipoprotein(a) levels in postmenopausal women: A systematic review and meta-analysis of 12 studies with 1009 patients

“…Bjarnason et al [33] Gallagher et al [34] Kalogeropou-los et al [35] Kroiss et al [36] Lloyd et al [37] Year …”

Tibolone: the way to beat many a postmenopausal ailments

“…Epidemiological studies demonstrate a clear and inverse correlation between HDL-C levels and the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Many clinical trials support that tibolone reduced HDL-C by ∼ 34% [37,38] and decreased triglycerides by ∼ 25%, but had no effect on LDL-C and lipoprotein-a [33,35,37] . These effects distinguish tibolone from estrogens, which decrease LDL-C and lipoprotein-a and increase HDL-C.…”

“…Numerous clinical trials have shown that tibolone prevents bone loss and maintains skeletal integrity in postmenopausal women [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41] . Two recently published studies have confirmed earlier reports that tibolone increases bone mass and that this result is dose dependent [42,43] .…”