HEALTH

Heart attack: women risk more than twice the risk of men

A new study coming straight from Portugal could make a huge contribution to the understanding and clinical treatment of heart attack, one of the diseases with the highest mortality rate. 

What Lusitanian researchers have discovered concerns the differences between men and women. Indeed, the effects in the short and medium term are that women are more than twice as likely to die after a heart attack as men. This is because of other episodes or because of the consequences of the first heart attack on the body.

The study, presented at Heart Failure 2023, included 884 patients.

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Heart attack: women risk more than twice the risk of men
A new study coming straight from Portugal could make a huge contribution to the understanding and clinical treatment of heart attack, one of the diseases with the highest mortality rate. What Lusitanian researchers have discovered concerns the differences between men and women. Indeed, the effects in the short and medium term are that women are more than twice as likely to die after a heart attack as men.
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The study
The study, presented at the Heart Failure 2023 congress of the European Society of Cardiology, was led by Mariana Martinho from the Hospital Garcia de Orta in Almada, Portugal.
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The parameters of the study
The parameters observed in the study were 30-day mortality, five-year mortality and five-year cardiovascular events (such as reinfarction, hospitalisation for heart failure or ischaemic stroke). The study included 884 patients. The average age of the subjects was 62 years, 27% of whom were women. On average, women were older than men (average age 67 versus 60) and had higher rates of hypertension, diabetes and previous stroke. Men were more likely to be smokers and to have coronary heart disease.
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The results of the study
The results were clear, showing that women run a higher risk of death following heart attacks: in fact, at 30 days after the cardiac episode, 11.8% of women had died compared to 4.6% of men, a mortality rate more than double. At five years, almost a third of women (32.1%) had died compared to 16.9% of men. More than a third of women (34.2%) had a serious event in the first five years, compared to 19.8% of men.
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The words of the researchers
In the words of Mariana Martinho: 'Women were two to three times more likely to have adverse outcomes than men in the short and long term, even when they received treatment at the same time as men. Women need regular monitoring after the cardiac event, with strict control of blood pressure, cholesterol levels and diabetes, and cardiac rehabilitation'.
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19/04/2024
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