Middle
Aged Women Having More Heart
Attacks
LOS ANGELES
: Researchers say, the narrowing
of the traditional gender
gap over the past 20-years,
is seeing the risk of a
heart attack becoming more
common in middle-aged women,
even while it is falling
in men.
Heart Picture
Data on 8,000-adults
aged 35 to 54 analysed between
1988 – 1994 and 1999
– 2004 reveals, smoking
rates amongst women are
partly to blame, with fewer
women quitting, which means
suffering from the ill-effects
at a younger age.
Both study
periods showed heart attacks
were more common amongst
men than women of the same
age group, however, over
time the gap has narrowed
considerably.
The first
study period saw 2.5% of
men and 0.7% of women reporting
having had a heart attack,
however, the later period
saw 2.2% of men and 1% of
women doing so.
Dr. Amytis
Towfighi, a researcher from
the University of Southern
California, Los Angeles
said ‘Although, men
in their midlife years continue
to have a higher prevalence
of myocardial infarction
(heart attack) and a higher
ten-year risk of hard coronary
heart disease than women
of similar age, our study
suggests the risk is increasing
in women, while decreasing
in men.’
Publishing
the study in the Archives
of Internal Medicine, reasearchers
also found risk factors
like blood pressure and
total cholesterol getting
worse in women, while they
were seen to be improving
in men.
Previous studies
have suggested that compared
to non-smokers, women smokers
are likely to suffer a heart
attack 15 years earlier.
The US study
findings probably also apply
to UK, which has an estimated
108,000-deaths from heart
and circulatory disorders
amongst women in Britain,
compared with 100,000-deaths
for men.
This means
that campaigns raising awareness
among women, especially
older women must be conducted
for educating them that
men are not the only one’s
to be affected by heart
attacks, as a woman’s
risk goes up after menopause.
Rising obesity
among both men and women
is seeing diabetes, another
major heart disease risk
factor increasing amongst
both sexes.
