The authors of this call make ten recommendations to improve the cardiovascular health of women, such as reducing inequalities in diagnosis and treatment, improving prevention and promoting scientific studies on the subject.
- Deaths from cardiovascular disease in women have fallen by 4.3% since 1990, but are on the rise in three highly populated countries: China, Indonesia and India.
- Deaths from cardiovascular disease concern more than 6,400 women out of 100,000.
- In France, 54% of deaths from cardiovascular disease concern women.
It is a threat to women’s health: according to a publication by The Lancet, cardiovascular diseases could be responsible for 35% of deaths among this population in 2030. The authors of this text are 17 experts, from eleven different countries. They relied on data from another study by The Lancetpublished in 2017, entitled “2019 Global Burden of Disease Study“, to establish ten recommendations to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease in women.
Cardiovascular disease is responsible for 35% of deaths in women yearly—yet remains:
❣️Understudied
❣️Under-recognized
❣️Underdiagnosed
❣️UndertreatedNEW @TheLancet Commission outlines 10 recommendations to improve health outcomes for millions of women: https://t.co/DDB97FFunC pic.twitter.com/WjV3aqqLV9
— The Lancet (@TheLancet) May 17, 2021
Important differences between countries
“Cardiovascular disease in women is understudied, underrecognized, underdiagnosed and undertreated., says Roxana Mehran of the Mount Sinai Medical Center in the United States. In 2019, around 275 million women were affected by it worldwide. The leading cause of death from cardiovascular disease in women is ischemic heart disease, or coronary heart disease. As for the most common risk factors, they are high blood pressure, high LDL cholesterol and high body mass index. Scientists have observed very significant variations according to the regions of the world: these diseases are more frequent in Egypt, Iran, Morocco or the United Arab Emirates, compared to Venezuela, Bolivia or Peru. The risk of death from cardiovascular disease in women is highest in Central Asia, Western Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Oceania, and Central Africa.
Specific risk factors for women
In this study, scientists show that women are affected by particular risk factors. “Women are more likely to suffer from health inequalities due to cultural, political or socioeconomic factorsunderlines Bairey Merz, of the Cedars-Sinai medical center, also located in the United States. For example, certain social or religious norms, such as restrictions on the practice of sports activities, may contribute to death from cardiovascular disease in women.Better identifying these risk factors is one of the recommendations of the commission behind this study.
How to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease?
Its authors also call for taking into account all categories of women, even young ones, “a group among whom heart attacks and smoking are on the rise“. They also insist on the need for better representation of women in medical studies, for training health professionals and patients to detect the signs of cardiovascular disease. In France, the French Federation of Cardiology has published heart and women, in 2018, to warn about the heart risk in this category of the population. According to this report, cardiovascular diseases are the first cause of death of women in the country: one in three women dies from it.
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