Jun 13, 2015 05:09 AM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

New research suggests that women who experience more hot flashes  have a higher risk for a cerebrovascular disease, News-Medical reported.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found that hot flashes can be linked to signs of subclinical heart disease, such as changes in the blood vessels, as well as high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol levels.

More than 70 percent of women have hot flashes  --  a sudden feeling of intense warmth and sweatiness --  while transitioning into menopause.

For the study, researchers collected and analyzed data from 20 women in midlife who were not taking hormone therapy and biologically monitored their hot flashes for 24 hours. An  MRI brain imaging was also conducted to detect white matter hyperintensities, which are bright spots on the scan that are thought to develop due to disease of the brain's small blood vessels. Participants also kept electronic hot flash diaries, Medical News Today reported.

Study participants reported an average of three hot flashes per day, but the monitoring showed greater frequency, at an average of eight per day as some were likely not self-reported because they occurred during sleep.

They found that women who had more monitor-detected hot flashes, particularly during sleep, also had a greater number of white matter hyperintensities on their brain scans.

"Other factors like age and cardiovascular risk factors did not explain this effect, so these findings suggest there is a relationship between menopausal hot flashes and blood vessel changes in the brain," Rebecca Thurston, principal investigator of the study, said in a statement. "Further work is needed to understand whether one causes the other, or if hot flashers are a signal of some other vascular process that impacts brain health."

The findings are detailed in the journal Menopause.

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