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Cardiovascular Disease and the Female Disadvantage

Age-standardised rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) are substantially higher in men than women. This explains why CVD has traditionally been seen as a “man’s problem”. However, CVD is the leading cause of death in women, worldwide, and is one of the most common causes of disability-adjusted life-...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Woodward, Mark
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6479531/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30939754
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16071165
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author Woodward, Mark
author_facet Woodward, Mark
author_sort Woodward, Mark
collection PubMed
description Age-standardised rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) are substantially higher in men than women. This explains why CVD has traditionally been seen as a “man’s problem”. However, CVD is the leading cause of death in women, worldwide, and is one of the most common causes of disability-adjusted life-years lost. In general, this is under-recognised and, in several ways, women are disadvantaged in terms of CVD. Both in primary and secondary prevention, there is evidence that women are undertreated, compared to men. Women often experience heart disease in a different way compared to men, and lack of recognition of this has been shown to have adverse consequences. Female patients of male cardiac physicians have been found to have worse outcomes than their male counterparts, with no such gender differential for female cardiologists. Clinical trials in CVD primarily recruit male patients, yet, it is well recognised that some drugs act differently in women and men. Diabetes and smoking, and perhaps other risk factors, confer a greater proportional excess cardiovascular risk to women than to men, whilst adverse pregnancies and factors concerned with the female reproductive cycle give women added vulnerability to CVD. However, women’s health research is skewed towards mother and child health, an area where, arguably, the greatest public health gains have already been made, and breast cancer. Hence there is a need to redefine what is meant by “women’s health” to encompass the whole lifecycle, with a stronger emphasis on CVD and other non-communicable diseases. Sex-specific analyses of research data should be the norm, whenever feasible.
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spelling pubmed-64795312019-04-29 Cardiovascular Disease and the Female Disadvantage Woodward, Mark Int J Environ Res Public Health Review Age-standardised rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) are substantially higher in men than women. This explains why CVD has traditionally been seen as a “man’s problem”. However, CVD is the leading cause of death in women, worldwide, and is one of the most common causes of disability-adjusted life-years lost. In general, this is under-recognised and, in several ways, women are disadvantaged in terms of CVD. Both in primary and secondary prevention, there is evidence that women are undertreated, compared to men. Women often experience heart disease in a different way compared to men, and lack of recognition of this has been shown to have adverse consequences. Female patients of male cardiac physicians have been found to have worse outcomes than their male counterparts, with no such gender differential for female cardiologists. Clinical trials in CVD primarily recruit male patients, yet, it is well recognised that some drugs act differently in women and men. Diabetes and smoking, and perhaps other risk factors, confer a greater proportional excess cardiovascular risk to women than to men, whilst adverse pregnancies and factors concerned with the female reproductive cycle give women added vulnerability to CVD. However, women’s health research is skewed towards mother and child health, an area where, arguably, the greatest public health gains have already been made, and breast cancer. Hence there is a need to redefine what is meant by “women’s health” to encompass the whole lifecycle, with a stronger emphasis on CVD and other non-communicable diseases. Sex-specific analyses of research data should be the norm, whenever feasible. MDPI 2019-04-01 2019-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6479531/ /pubmed/30939754 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16071165 Text en © 2019 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Woodward, Mark
Cardiovascular Disease and the Female Disadvantage
title Cardiovascular Disease and the Female Disadvantage
title_full Cardiovascular Disease and the Female Disadvantage
title_fullStr Cardiovascular Disease and the Female Disadvantage
title_full_unstemmed Cardiovascular Disease and the Female Disadvantage
title_short Cardiovascular Disease and the Female Disadvantage
title_sort cardiovascular disease and the female disadvantage
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6479531/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30939754
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16071165
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