Under the title Women at the heart of cardiovascular risk, the latest Weekly Epidemiological Bulletin (BEH) of the National Institute for Sanitary Surveillance highlights in particular the progress of heart attack in young women. “The increase in the number of hospitalizations for a myocardial infarction in women aged 45 to 54 increased from + 3% per year between 2002 and 2008 to + 4.8% per year between 2009 and 2013” specifies this study.
Faced with this observation, the French Federation of Cardiology insists on the need to take this risk factor into account in order to set up a prevention policy.
“It is urgent to upset our societal cultures, which still consider that young women are protected from cardiovascular diseases by their hormones, declares Professor Claire Mounier-Vehier, president of the French Federation of Cardiology. We are facing a worrying epidemiology, particularly among young women, which is mainly explained by the evolution of their lifestyle with the adoption, for 30 years, of the same risky behaviors as men. “
Smoking: the major risk factor
For Prof. Mounier-Vehier, action should be taken more drastically on lifestyle and addictive behavior (tobacco, cannabis, alcohol) “just as deleterious for the heart as for the brain”.
If smoking is the major risk factor for myocardial infarction in young women, other factors explain this 5% increase in the number of heart attacks in women under 65:
• Atypical symptoms often mistaken for an anxiety attack : nausea, palpitations on exertion, shortness of breath, pain in the middle of the back, unusual fatigue …
• Complex care due too late screeningand insufficient prescription of drug treatments.
To alert women to the cardiovascular risk, the French Federation of Cardiology last December launched an awareness campaign entitled Prejudices, through a short film directed by Maïwenn, encouraging women to take care of their hearts and arteries.
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