Doctors need to develop different treatment methods for managing heart disease risks for women and men, a University of Sydney study has found.
Associate Professor Sarah Zaman says most heart health guidelines in Australia are based on studies that focused on men.
“When you imagine someone having a heart attack, you probably think of an overweight, middle-aged man,” she says.
But heart complications are actually also the number one killer of women worldwide, and women face their own set of unique risk factors such as high blood pressure in pregnancy, gestational diabetes and a drop in oestrogen levels after menopause.
“Women also more frequently have a slightly different kind of heart attack,” says Dr Zaman.
“The classic heart attack is one where you’ve got a cholesterol-based blockage in your arteries. But, you can have other heart attacks where the vessel just tears.
“That’s called a spontaneous coronary artery dissection and that’s much more common in women than men by ratio of about four to one.”
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