The lifestyle and health factors related to heart disease seems to have a greater impact on cardiovascular risk in women than men, according to a study presented at the annual scientific session of the American College of Cardiology (acc.25).
While factors such as food, exercise, smoking and blood pressure are long linked to the risk of heart disease, the new study is the first to show that these associations are collectively stronger in women than men. According to the researchers, the results suggest that approaches to screening or assessment of specific gender risk could give a more precise image of cardiovascular risk and better motivate people to adopt healthy cardiac habits.
For the same level of health, our study shows that the increase in risk (linked to each factor) is higher in women than in men – it is not a single size. It’s new and something that has not been seen in other studies. “”
Maneesh Sud, MD, PHD, assistant professor in the Medicine Department, Interventional and Clinician cardiologist at Sunnybrook Health Center in Toronto and principal author of the study
The study focused on eight factors associated with heart disease: diet, sleep, physical activity, smoking, body mass index, blood sugar, lipids and blood pressure. Overall, the results have shown that women were more likely to have fewer negative and more positive risk factors compared to men. However, women with more negative risk factors have been faced with a more pronounced increase in their chances of heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular event compared to men with a similar risk factor profile.
“We have found that women tend to have better health than men, but the impact on results is different,” said South. “The combination of these factors has a greater impact on women than in men.”
The researchers analyzed data of more than 175,000 Canadian adults who registered for the Ontario health study between 2009 and 2017. None of the participants had a heart disease at the start and about 60% were women. Each participant has been classified as having an ideal or mediocre health in terms of each of the eight risk factors, and these scores were combined to calculate a global risk factor profile as poor (less than five positive factors or more than three negative factors), intermediate (five to seven positive factors) or ideal (ideal on the eight factors).
During a median follow -up period of just over 11 years of age, researchers followed the impact of seven cardiac disease results – heart attack, stroke, unstable chest angina (thoracic pain resulting from restricted blood circulation to the heart), peripheral arterial disease (procedures elongated on weapons or legends), heartaclage Coronarian (procedures for blocked arteries) and cardiastal death – participants in all three) and blocked arteries) and cards of the groups groups.
In the studied population, many more women have been classified as having an ideal health, with 9.1% of women and 4.8% of men marking a perfect 8 out of 8. Women were also less likely to be classified as having poor health, with 21.9% of women and 30.5% of men falling into this category. In terms of individual risk factors, women were more likely than men from having an ideal diet, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure, while women were slightly less likely than men to have ideal physical activity levels.
After adapting to age, the results have shown that participants of both sexes have seen a high risk of heart disease if they had mediocre or intermediate health compared to those with ideal health, but these differences were more extreme in women than men. Women with poor health had almost five times the risk of heart disease as women with ideal health, while men with poor health had 2.5 times the risk of heart disease as men with ideal health. Women with intermediate health had 2.3 times the risk as those whose ideal health, while men with intermediate health had 1.6 times the risk as those who have ideal health.
A more in -depth study is necessary to understand how each factor could affect the results differently in men and women on the basis of biological or socio -cultural factors, the researchers said.
Researchers plan to conduct additional analyzes to determine whether there are differences in the impacts of risk factors among people from different racial and ethnic groups or in women before and after menopause.
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