End the myth that men are the main victims of heart attacks and heart disease. Women most often die and fall ill because of it – believes prof. Zbigniew Zdrojewski from the Medical University of Gdańsk.
The specialist refers to the latest report of the NATPOL nationwide heart disease research program, of which he is the coordinator. It shows that cardiovascular diseases are the cause of deaths in 53 percent. women and 41 percent. men. Men are more likely to die of cancer.
The research also shows that the hearts of Poles age faster than those of people in other countries. Both women and men have hearts 8-9 years older than their record age indicates. Only the aging process of the heart muscle is different in both sexes.
The heart of a Pole begins to age earlier, around the age of 30, but this process is gradual, similar to the gradual decline of the male sex hormone – testosterone. The heart of a 35-year-old is forty, a 60-year-old is 65-80, and a XNUMX-year-old is XNUMX.
In women, the heart ages more rapidly. At the same age as the record age, it is only in the case of young ladies, usually up to 30, at the latest up to 44 years of age. In women aged 45-59, it is the same as in men of the same age, i.e. 60-65 years old. Then, after the age of sixty, she ages faster than in men. The heart of 70-year-old Poland is already 95 years old – according to NATPOL research.
As Prof. Michael Pencina of Boston University School of Public Health, women’s heart age is chasing a man’s heart age, and then the race loses. Thanks to his research in the USA, it was possible to establish the age of the hearts of Polish women and Poles.
In women with higher education, the heart ages a little more slowly. In men, education has no significant effect on the aging of the heart.
In the future, women’s hearts may age even faster. This is indicated by epidemiological data published during the European Society of Cardiology, which was held in Paris in 2011. They show that in 1995, cardiovascular diseases caused 3,7 percent. deaths of women under 50, and in 2010 as much as 11,6 percent.
The main reasons for this are: an unfavorable lifestyle, mainly smoking, lack of exercise, overweight and stress. The risk of having a heart attack is three times higher in women who smoke and take birth control pills.
“Women are afraid to die of breast cancer, which kills one in 25 women in France, while one woman in three will suffer from cardiovascular disease,” said Dr. Claire Mounier-V, a hier of Lille, author of the report on the subject at the congress.
According to prof. Witold Zatoński from the Oncology Center in Warsaw, smoking has made lung cancer a more frequent cause of death among Polish women than breast cancer for two years.