The influence of hormonal therapy on postmenopausal women with diabetes mellitus

M. Sandu, T. Hangan, M. Dumitru

Abstract: Aim. At many postmenopausal women the diabetes mellitus (DM) could appear. This study was designed to test whether hormonal therapy (HT) favorably affects changes in postmenopausal women with DM. Methods. The study was composed of 190 postmenopausal women from CI Parhon, National Institute of Endocrinology Bucharest who were randomly divided as follows: Group 1 (n=120) placebo, who refused the HT and Group 2 (n=70) those who received HT. The patients from Group 1 were divided in patients with DM (n=21) and patients with normal blood sugar (n=99). The women from the 2nd Group were divided into women with DM (n=12) and women with normal blood sugar (n=58). The age at menopause installation, body mass index (BMI), glutamicoxaloacetic transaminase (GOT), glutamate-pyruvate transaminase (GPT), smoking and alcohol consumption were analysed. Results. The age at menopausal instalation in the 1st Group had a mean values of 47.52 years for those with DM and 46.88 years for those with normal blood sugar. In the 2nd Group, the mean age was 44.33 years for those with DM and 44.91 years for those with normal blood sugar. The BMI showed that in the 2nd Group, the values were lower and the patients with DM had a normal BMI comparing with the 1st Group. GOT values showed to be in normal range for both groups. Moreover, the values from the 2nd Group with HT and DM showed to be much lower than Group 1, without HT. The GPT values were in accordance with GOT values. Smoking was evaluated in terms of smokers and non-smokers as follows: in the 1st Group, 10 (47.6%) patients with DM and 13(13.13%) with normal blood sugar were smokers. From the 2nd Group only 4 (33.3%) with DM and 34 (58.62%) with normal blood sugar were smokers. From the alcohol consumption point of view, from the 1st Group all the patients 21(100%) with DM consumed alcohol and only 87 (87.8%) with normal blood sugar consumed. From the 2nd Group, 6 (50%) with DM consumed alcohol and only 19 (32.7%) with normal blood sugar consumed. Conclusions. HT intervention significantly reduced the analysed parameters, in terms of BMI, GOT and GPT in postmenopausal women with DM. Smoking and alcohol consumption showed to present no changes induced by HT. Therefore, more data is needed to test whether these parameters could be influenced by HT in postmenopausal women with or without DM.
DOI:10.18643/gieu.2016.19

Keywords: estrogen, therapy, menopause, diabetes mellitus, blood glucose.