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HowToPreventHeartDisease.com |
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Does Gender Difference Affect Heart Disease? All hearts look alike but actually there are noticeable differences between a man’s and a woman’s heart. A women’s heart and some of its interior chambers, for instance, is usually smaller and the walls that divide some of these chambers are thinner. Men and women behave differently to stress, too. When a woman is stressed, her pulse rate increases, and her heart ejects more blood whereas the arteries of a man’s heart constrict causing his blood pressure to rise when he is stressed. Because of these differences, women have risk factors and symptoms differ from that men have, and this will affect the treatments and outcomes of some common heart diseases. Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a leading cause of heart attack. While it is the same process for men and women, women have risk factors that men do not have. Certain disease that can raise the risk of CAD include endometriosis, polycystic ovary disease (PCOS), diabetes, and high blood pressure that develops during pregnancy can only be found in women. Endometriosis has been found to increase the risk of developing CAD by 400 percent in women under the age of 40.
Women usually have a higher risk of developing
heart disease after menopause. This is because the levels of female hormone
estrogen begin to decline after menopause, a process that starts around the age
of 50. Estrogen is associated with higher levels of HDL (high-density
lipoprotein or good cholesterol) and lower levels of LDL (low-density
lipoprotein or bad cholesterol). Decreasing level of estrogen will reverse the
process hence raising the risk of heart disease. That is why women tend to have
their first heart attack much later in life than men. The average age for a
heart attack in women is 70 whereas in men is 66.
Though women may have dramatic, chest-clutching pain as most men do, some may also experience subtle symptoms for 3 or 4 weeks before a heart attack. Some of these symptoms include new or dramatic fatigue, pain in the neck, back or jaw, pain or discomfort in the stomach, nausea and shortness of breath. Hence, women often unaware what they are experiencing is a heart attack and think something else is a problem. Diagnosis of CAD in women may also be difficult. As CAD in women often affects the smaller arteries that feed the muscles on the walls of the heart with their major coronary arteries look normal, angiogram will not reveal the blockage. Angiogram is an x-ray test using a special dye and camera to image the blood flow in arteries or veins to determine if there is blockage. Heart attack is harder on a woman than a man. Women tend not to do well as men after a heart attack. They usually need a longer hospital stay and are more likely to die before leaving the hospital. According to a study published February 23, 2016, in journal ‘Circulation’, within a year of a first heart attack, survival rates are lower in women than in men, even after accounting for age. Within 5 years, 47 percent of the women will die, develop heart failure, or suffer from a stroke, compared with 36 percent of the men. For men, heart failure is usually caused by damage from a heart attack that prevents the muscle from contracting as forcefully as it should. But for women, heart failure happens when high blood pressure, chronic kidney disease, or other condition prevents their heart muscle from relaxing properly between beats. Women with this type of heart failure generally live longer than men, though they require frequent hospitalizations for shortness of breath, have limited physical ability, and are more likely to need nursing home care. Recent studies indicated that women with atrial fibrillation (afib) have more symptoms, a worse quality of life, a higher likelihood of stroke, and worse outcomes than men. Also, they are more likely than men to be treated with catheter ablation, and be re-hospitalized after the procedure. However, women who receive treatment for afib might survive longer and are less likely to die from a heart problem than men with afib.
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