It has been known for a long time that certain lifestyle and health factors have increased the risk of heart disease – but a new study stresses that they could affect women more than men.
Eight specific habits – diet, sleep, sleep, physical activity, smoking, body mass index, blood sugar, lipids and blood pressure – seem to have the impact on heart health risk for women compared to men, have found researchers from the Sunnybrook Health Center in Toronto.
The results will be presented at the annual scientific session of the American College of Cardiology in Chicago on March 29 to 31, 2025.
The study included data of more than 175,000 Canadian adults without existing heart conditions who have registered for the Ontario health study between 2009 and 2017, according to a press release.
The researchers analyzed the participants’ scores for the eight risk factors, then followed the impact of seven heart results over an 11 -year period.
These results included a heart attack, a stroke, an unstable angina (chest pain that results from a limited blood flow to the heart), a peripheral arterial disease (shrinking blood vessels in the arms or legs), heart failure and coronary revascularization (procedures to open the blocked arteries) and death cardiovascular, publication.
Overall, more women had an ideal health (9.1% against 4.8% of men).
They were also less likely to have poor health (21.9% against 30.5% of men).
However, it has been shown that women who had poor health had almost five times the risk of heart disease that women with ideal health, the study revealed.
In comparison, men with poor health had 2.5 times the risk of heart disease compared to men with ideal health.
Among women with intermediate health, there was a risk 2.3 times higher than for those who have an ideal health, compared to 1.6 times the risk for men with intermediate health.
“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,” said the main author Maneesh Sud, MD, PH.D., assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, in Toronto, to the version.
“We have found that women tend to have better health than men, but the impact on results is different. The combination of these factors has a greater impact on women than in men. ”
This is a new discovery that has not been observed in other studies, added the researcher.
Based on study results, researchers have concluded that “screening or risk -specific screening approaches” could more precisely predict the risk of people’s heart disease.
Dr. Marc Siegel, professor of medicine in Nyu Langone Health Clinic and Fox News’ principal medical analyst, was not involved in the study, but shared his ideas on the possible reasons for the results.
“I think the reason why women are more sensitive to heart disease is due to special stage stress in their lives that men do not share, which include dramatic hormonal changes that can be directly on heart function,” he told Fox News Digital.
These steps may include pregnancy, childbirth and menopause, noted the doctor.
“Keep in mind that estrogens are in some ways cardio-protectors, and it drops considerably with menopause,” said Siegel. “And at the same time, cholesterol (a heart risk factor) increases, as is the weight.”
“Overall, women tend to have better health than men, with better diets, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure, but those in intermediate health had a higher risk of heart problems,” he said.
Due to the limited population of the study, “only certain conclusions can be drawn,” added Siegel.
Dr. Bradley Serwer, a cardiologist based in Maryland and Chief of Vitalsolution, an Ingnovis health company that offers cardiovascular and anesthesiology services to the country’s hospitals, said that there was a need for studies specially designed to focus on the cardiovascular risk of women.
“For many years, we have presumed that traditional cardiovascular risk factors have affected populations in the same way,” said Serwer, who was not involved in the study, in Fox News Digital.
“We know that premenopausal women have a low -age cardiovascular risk at the lower age, but that catches up with menopause.”
Additional research is necessary to understand the underlying reasons for this phenomenon, noted the cardiologist.
“Is it only attributable to the protective effects of estrogen, or are there other unrecognized contributors?” I congratulate the authors of this study for their contributions, because they more dispute our conventional approaches to primary prevention in women. ”