Heart Attack Rates in Women Increase October 27
We have mentioned in a couple of previous posts how women are more conscientious about their health than men; how they are more likely to eat healthy and lead healthy lifestyles and schedule trips to the doctor’s office when something is not quite right. However, in the case of heart attacks, this fact seems to have been overridden by the fact that certain risk factors for heart disease – such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels – are reportedly not treated as aggressively in women as they are in men.
These suggestions were taken from the results of a study that was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. In a way, women’s attitudes towards health in general seem to have a positive effect in that in data taken in two 5-year time periods, there were more men who had heart attacks than women. However, only men posted improvement in heart attack rates; those of women increased. For the most part, cardiovascular risk factors in men seem to either have improved or simply remained stable.
Diabetes is one risk factor, though, that both men and women share in common and has shown an increase in occurrence in both genders; this is probably the result of the prevalence of obesity in society, based on the study.
The reason for the less aggressive treatment of heart disease risk factors in women may have stemmed from the traditional thought that hormonal influences in women who have not yet undergone menopause serve as a protective barrier against heart disease and stroke. What this basically means is that middle-aged women are seen as not as likely to be at risk for heart attacks and strokes.
But not anymore, and again, the most likely culprit that the research authors see is the increase in obesity. It looks like there will be a need to address the obesity issue alongside those of heart disease, as well as change the perspective regarding who belongs to the high risk group for heart attacks in order to post an improvement, at least in our opinion.
The study was conducted by Drs. Amytis Towfighi, MD and Ling Zheng, PhD of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles and Dr. Bruce Ovbiagele, MD of the University of California at Los Angeles.
Tags: heart attack, heart health, women heart attack, women heart failure, women heart health
rocky Oct 29
The reason for the less aggressive treatment of heart disease risk factors in women may have stemmed from the traditional thought that hormonal influences in women who have not yet undergone menopause serve as a protective barrier against heart disease and stroke. What this basically means is that middle-aged women are seen as not as likely to be at risk for heart attacks and strokes.
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