Effects of hormone replacement therapy on cardiovascular responses in postmenopausal women with and without type 2 diabetes.

Objective: To determine whether blood pressure (BP) responses to pressor stimuli during hormone replacement therapy are reduced by oral conjugated equine estrogens 0.625 mg/day (ERT) and ERT in combination with 5 mg/day continuous medroxyprogesterone (HRT) in women with and without type 2 diabetes.

Methods: Twenty type 2 diabetic and 20 non-diabetic women completed a three period, randomised, double bind crossover studying the effects of 1 month of therapy of ERT, HRT and placebo on BP responses to mental arithmetic and isometric stress and to intravenous infusions of noradrenaline and angiotensin II.

Forearm vasodilator response to angiotensin II in elderly women receiving candesartan: role of AT(2)- receptors.

The effects of angiotensin II (Ang II) and the Ang II type 2 (AT(2)) receptor antagonist, PD 123319, on forearm vascular resistance (FVR) were studied in elderly women during Ang II type 1 (AT(1)) receptor antagonist therapy. Eight women, aged 67 +/- 6 years, received the AT(1)-receptor antagonist, candesartan, 8-16 mg once-daily for three weeks. FVR responses to intra-brachial arterial infusions of Ang II (8-32 ng/minute) during the co-infusion of PD 123319 (8 microg/minute) or placebo were measured at the end of the second and third weeks in a randomised, double-blind, crossover study.