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Background It has been long debated whether menopause itself is a risk factor for hypertension in peri-menopausal women. We aimed to assess the association between menopause and hypertension, and whether metabolic syndrome (MetS) has an influence on its effect. Methods Data for 1502 women aged 42 to 53 from the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study (KoGES) database were retrospectively analyzed. The KoGES database consists of 10,038 participants, of which 52.6% (5275) were female. Subjects were followed up for 4 years, and compared according to menopausal status. Additionally, 1216 non-hypertensive subjects were separately analyzed to assess whether a change in menopausal status was associated with development of hypertension. Results The prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and MetS for menopausal and non-menopausal subjects at baseline was 24.4% vs. 16.7%, 5.8% vs. 2.9%, and 25.4% vs. 16.6%, respectively (p

Objective: It is observed in a cross-sectional study encompassing general Korean population that prevalence of obesity and metabolic syndrome is high among hypertensive women. Notably, there is a marked increase in the prevalence of obesity in women in their 5th and 6th decades which may correspond to the period of menopause. In fact, obesity might contribute substantially to hypertension in perimenopausal women. We investigated the relationship between hypertension, menopause, and obesity in perimenopausal women in Korea. In addition, we also studied the clinical implication of metabolic syndrome in these subjects. Design and Method: We collected data of 5275 women registered in Ansung-Ansan Cohort, surveyed between April 2005 and November 2006, a 3rd follow-up from the baseline. Of these, 1343 premenopausal and postmenopausal women aged 47.8 ± 5.3 years (mean ± standard deviation) were investigated in this study. Results: The prevalence of hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes was significantly higher in postmenopausal than premenopausal women (24.6% vs. 16.4%, 51.7% vs. 38.9%, and 13.3% vs. 6.5%, respectively). Postmenopausal women were older (47.6 ± 2.4 vs. 45.1 ± 1.9 years [p Conclusions: Postmenopausal women had higher prevalence of hypertension. Even after adjustment for age, BMI, and waist circumference, menopause elevated the risk of hypertension by 30%. This increase might be explained by high prevalence of metabolic syndrome in postmenopausal women.