More Women than Men Die of Heart Disease

Specialists announced yesterday, at the annual conference of the European Society of Cardiology, that heart disease is a bigger problem in women than in men, being the cause of death in 55% of women, as compared to 43% of men. Cardiovascular disease makes 10 times more victims among women than breast cancer.

Prof. Ian Graham, of the Adelaide and Meath Hospital, Dublin told the audience that "women are less likely to be investigated for heart disease, diagnosed correctly, referred for specialist investigation, offered revascularization or be offered appropriate drug therapy".

It is not widely known that cardiovascular disease is the most frequent cause of death among women. Women are in fact at double risk of dying within 1 year after a heart attack, as compared to men. Dr. Graham states that the public should be aware of women's risks. However, what happens all over the world is that women are under-represented in trials of new heart treatments.

The Euro Heart Survey program presented to the conference found considerable gender differences in treatment as well. "The under use of diagnostic tests in women might partly explain the gender differences", stated Dr. Mattie Lenzen of the Erasmus Medical Centre, Holland.

In both men and women, the main factors that increase the risk of heart disease or heart attack are high blood pressure, smoking and high cholesterol levels. Professor Graham has found, however, that heart disease develops on average 10 years later in women than in men.

Researchers reached the conclusion that the reason why women were less likely to be given surgery and did less well after treatment to open blocked arteries was possibly the fact that their condition was much worse by the time they received treatment.

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