Heart Disease in women: new targets, new opportunities

Heart disease in women is both underappreciated and undertreated. Further, women have: 1) a greater acceleration in their risk of heart disease after menopause, 2) an increased risk of death following their first heart attack and 3) an increased risk of complications with revascularization procedures. The biological basis for these sex-specific cardiovascular risks is unknown and the role of estrogen has been contentious.

Emerging evidence has suggested that some of the complexity may relate to our lack of understanding of the multiple cellular mechanisms by which estrogens mediate their effects. Specifically, both classic nuclear receptors and the GPCR, GPER (aka GPR30) are important signal transduction mechanisms, which in some settings mediate opposite effects. GPER has been shown to be important as a determinant of several cardiovascular risk factors including blood pressure and LDL cholesterol as well as a determinant of the response to vascular injury.