A recent study in The Lancet found that women are less likely to develop heart disease, especially at younger ages, because they have a better risk profile than men. established how patterns of risk factors and associations with heart disease did not change. The survey was conducted among her 1.56 million people in 21 countries.
So how many men and women in this study developed heart disease?
During the 10-year follow-up period of 1.56 million participants, 4.7% of women and 7.6% of men experienced a major cardiovascular disease event. When normalized for age (mean age of males was slightly higher than that of female participants), the incidence of cardiac events was found to be 5 per 1,000 person-years for females and 8.2 per 1,000 person-years for males.
“Women have a more favorable cardiovascular risk profile than men, especially at younger ages. This finding is supported by the lower incidence of major cardiovascular diseases in women than in men.” Research says.
This is not because risk factors differ significantly among women, but because many of the risk factors, such as high cholesterol levels, develop later in life, the study said.
What are the risk factors for men and women?
Regarding the risk profile, the study found that systolic blood pressure (the pressure in the arteries when the heart is beating) increases with age in both men and women, although average levels are lower in women. Similarly, fasting blood glucose levels increased with age in both men and women, but were slightly lower in women than in men between the ages of 55 and 70.
Again, the waist-to-hip ratio (which is a more accurate measure of abdominal fat than BMI) was found to be consistently lower in women than in men across all age groups. A proportion of men were current or former smokers, consumed alcohol, and were less physically active.
In contrast, mean levels of non-HDL cholesterol or bad cholesterol increased with age in women but not in men. pattern was not seen in men.Also, more women reported symptoms of depression.
Risk factors associated with major cardiovascular events also differed slightly between men and women.High non-HDL cholesterol was more strongly associated with major cardiovascular disease in men than in women, whereas depression symptoms were more strongly associated in men. Hypertension was a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease in both women and men, followed by abdominal obesity in women and high non-HDL cholesterol in men.
“Women and men have similar risk factors, which underscores the importance of similar strategies to prevent cardiovascular disease in men and women,” said the paper’s lead author. said Marjan Walli, a research fellow at McMaster University’s Population and Health Research Institute (PHRI). — Attai said in the release.
But diet was more strongly associated with risk in women than in men — “something that has not been explained before and needs independent confirmation,” said PHRI executive director and McMaster professor of medicine. One Salim Yusuf said:
So what do you need to do?
As this study shows, men have higher levels of metabolic risk factors at younger ages, so researchers need to start controlling for risk factors at an even younger age in men than in women. It suggests that
The authors also suggested that studies are needed to confirm whether menopause is an independent risk factor for heart disease. Because the increase turned out to be more substantial than it could be due to age. However, this was not within the scope of the current study.
The researchers, referring to other studies, said that statin use can help reduce bad cholesterol, which can also significantly reduce the risk in men and women.
The researchers also said that smoking is a risk factor for men and women worldwide, and that differences in smoking patterns reflect different levels of heart disease, not smoking’s inherent reduced risk. The harmful effects of smoking are well established, highlighting the importance of initiatives aimed at increasing quit rates and decreasing smoking initiation rates among all smokers, regardless of biological sex. We do,” said the study.
