ABSTRACT
Coronary heart disease (CHD) remains the primary cause of death in women in Western societies. Estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) reduces the risk of CHD by about 50% in women (Stampfer and Colditz, 1991; Barrett-Connor and Bush, 1991). In addition, in experimental studies, ERT decreases arterial cholesterol content in rabbits (Hough and Zilversmit, 1986; Haarbo et al., 1991; Sulistiyani et al., 1995) and decreases coronary artery atherosclerosis (the leading cause of CHD) in nonhuman primates (Adams et al., 1990; 1997). Although some forms of estrogen replacement therapy have beneficial effects on plasma lipids and lipoproteins (Crook and Seed, 1990), estrogen’s effects on both CHD risk and atherosclerosis extent are largely independent of plasma lipoprotein concentrations (Barrett-Connor and Bush, 1991;
Departments of 1 Comparative Medicine and 2 Pathology, Bowman Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA. * Corresponding author: Janice D.Wagner, Department of Comparative Medicine, Bowman Gray School of Medicine, Medical Center Boulevard, Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1040, Tel: 0019107161630, Fax: 0019107161515, E-mail: jwagner@cpm.bgsm.edu.
