THE ESSENTIAL
- Researchers have identified different risk factors that trigger a heart attack in young men and women
- In France, 200 women die every day from cardiac arrest, six times more than from breast cancer
We knew that young women have twice the risk of dying following an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) than men of the same age. A new study conducted by Yale and published in the Jama Network Open a concluded that young men and young women aged 55 and under often have different risk factors.
Seven risk factors
According to the researchers, seven risk factors – including diabetes, depression, hypertension or high blood pressure, current smoking, family history of AMI, low household income and high cholesterol – were identified. associated with an increased risk of AMI in women.
The strongest association was diabetes, followed by current smoking, depression, hypertension, low household income, and family history of AMI. Among men, current smoking and family history of AMI were the main risk factors.
Some of these factors – including high blood pressure, diabetes, depression and poverty – have a greater impact on young women than on young men, experts have found.
Importance of studying young women
While rates of AMI in young women have increased in recent years, this study shows the importance of specifically studying young women with heart attacks “a group that has been largely overlooked in many studies and yet is as important as the number of young women diagnosed with breast cancer,” according to Dr. Harlan M. Krumholz, Yale professor of medicine and lead author of the paper.
Younger women account for regarding 5% of all heart attacks that occur in the United States each year. “This small percentage has implications for a large number of people because a large number of AMIs occur each year in the United States,” said Yuan Lu, assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine and lead author of the study “Every year, regarding 40,000 young women are hospitalized for AMI, and heart disease is the leading cause of death in this age group. age.”
Importance of education
Lu stressed the importance of education. “When we talk regarding heart attack in young women, people often don’t know regarding it,” she said.
Indeed, research on heart attack has focused mainly on men while some of their symptoms are different from those of men.
Thus, the signs of a heart attack can sometimes go unnoticed by women, their relatives and professionals, who attribute their symptoms to another health problem, the side effects of a drug or consider them harmless. . As a result, women don’t always get the care they need to prevent complications from heart attack and death.
Different symptoms
Chest pain is the most common symptom in both sexes, but women are also at risk of experiencing the following symptoms: unusual tiredness that worsens with activity, difficulty breathing, heartburn that are not relieved by antacids, nausea and/or vomiting that is not relieved by antacids, anxiety, tightness and pain in the chest that may extend to the neck, jaw and shoulders, generalized weakness, paler complexion than usual, and sweating.
Younger people
While in the United States hospitalization rates for heart attacks have declined over time, the proportion of younger people who are hospitalized for a heart attack is increasing. “So there seems to be a general trend for AMI to occur earlier in life, which makes preventing heart attacks in younger ages particularly important,” Yuan Lu said.