High blood pressure, smoking and diabetes raise a woman’s risk of heart attack more than these factors raise a man’s risk, according to a new study published in the ‘BMJ’.
Women who smoke, have diabetes or high blood pressure increase their risk of a heart attack more than men faced with the same risks, a large study of UK adults has found.
The researchers, writing in the BMJ, said women should receive the same treatments as men and be offered support to stop smoking.
While the rate of heart attacks in men remains three times higher than in women, according to the researcher Elizabeth Millett, an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford’s George Institute for Global Health, her study identified that those three individual factors – smoking, diabetes and high blood pressure – are more likely to be linked to heart attacks in women, showing the need for more awareness efforts targeted at women on the issue of heart diseases.
Women who smoked were three times more likely to have a heart attack than women who did not smoke – but in men, smoking only doubled their risk.
High blood pressure increased a woman’s risk by an extra 83% relative to its effect in a man.
Type 1 and type 2 diabetes both had a greater impact on the heart attack risk of women compared to men, the study found.
“This strengthens the need for people to remember to look at women and men when studying heart attacks,” Millett said.
Combined with an aging population (in the UK where the study was done), this is likely to see “women catching up with men” in terms of heart attack rates, Millett explained.
Millett added that awareness is crucial, as heart attack symptoms can differ for men and women. A few symptoms — such as unusual tiredness, dizziness or cold sweats — are more common in women than men, she explained.
