Heart Rate Variability and Endogenous Sex Hormones During the Menstrual Cycle in Young Women

Abstract

To our knowledge, the relationship between all four endogenous female sex hormones and resting cardiac autonomic function has not been studied. The aim of the current study was to examine the association between the normal endogenous levels of oestrogen (17β‐oestradiol), progesterone, luteinising hormone and follicle‐stimulating hormone and heart rate variability (HRV) during the menstrual cycle in young eumenorrheic women. Ten healthy, young, female subjects volunteered for this study. HRV and endogenous hormone levels were recorded at three phases of the menstrual cycle: menses (day 3.8 ± 0.5), ovulation (day 15.8 ± 0.7) and luteal (day 22.1 ± 0.4) to ensure HRV recordings at times of low (menses) and high (ovulation and luteal) hormonal influence. Heart rate recordings were obtained from supine resting subjects and analysed on a Holter analysis system. Total power (TP, 0‐1.0 Hz), low frequency (LF, 0.041‐0.15 Hz), high frequency (HF, 0.15‐0.80 Hz) and LF/HF components of HRV were examined. Despite a significantly greater HR at ovulation and normal cyclic variations in all endogenous sex hormone levels, no measure of HRV was significantly different between menstrual cycle phases. Significant correlations between oestrogen levels and absolute measures of HRV at ovulation were identified. The results of the current study demonstrated that the normal cyclic variations in endogenous sex hormone levels during the menstrual cycle were not significantly associated with changes in cardiac autonomic control as measured by HRV. Significant correlation between peak oestrogen levels and HRV measures at ovulation provided further support for the reported cardioprotective effects of oestrogen in healthy females.

Study of Cardiovascular Reactivity to Mental Stress in Different Phases of Menstrual Cycle

“…The present study did not notice any differences in the basal heart rate between the phases, which is similar to the findings of many other studies [17][18][19][20]. Similarly the insignificant differences in basal SBP and DBP values in this study were also in concordance with the findings of Sato et al, [11].…”

“…Moreover, estrogen has been attributed with cardioprotective effects. Hence it increases the parasympathetic tone and progesterone blocks this action resulting in an increased sympathetic activity during luteal phase [20]. So it can be hypothesised that cardiovascular reactivity to mental stress should be more in luteal phase than the follicular phase in normally cycling women.…”

Reduced parasympathetic activity during sleep in the symptomatic phase of severe premenstrual syndrome

“…Our findings in the control group that menstrual phase did not influence HRV during sleep support those of some previous studies that have investigated resting HRV in young women when awake (13,19). Others, however, have reported an increase in the LF/HF ratio in the luteal phase (14-16), which we did not find.…”

“…There are reports of increases in the LF/HF ratio, interpreted as indicating increased SNS activity (14-16), increased HF power, interpreted as indicating enhanced PNS activity (17), decreased SDNN and SDANN (12), or no change in time-domain (18) or spectral-domain (19) HRV components during the luteal phase compared with the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle.…”

Intra-session stability of short-term heart rate variability measurement: gender and total spectral power influence

“…The normal cyclic variations in endogenous sex hormone levels during the menstrual cycle are not significantly associated with changes in cardiac autonomic control as measured by HRV. A significant correlation between peak estrogen levels and HRV measures at ovulation provides further support for the reported cardioprotective effects of estrogen in healthy females (Leicht et al, 2003). We did not monitor the possible impact of the menstrual cycle in this study, which can be considered as a study limit.…”