Scientists at Cedars Sinai Medical Center - a leading Los Angeles clinic and respected academic center - have found that female blood vessels age faster than male blood vessels. According to the authors of the study, which is published in the journal JAMA Cardiology, the findings will help explain some of the significant gender differences in cardiovascular risk.
According to Susan Cheng, head of the research team, their findings challenge the long-standing belief that vascular disease and its risk in women lags behind men by 20 years.
“Many medical professionals have long believed that women are catching up with men in terms of their cardiovascular risk,” explains Cheng. Our research not only confirms that women have different biology and physiology, but also illustrates why women may be more susceptible to developing certain types of cardiovascular disease at different points in life. We focused on a more thorough study of blood pressure trajectories throughout the life of women, comparing them with data for men, because the vast majority of cardiovascular disease processes, as a rule, begin with an increase in blood pressure. This is the main risk factor."
The team studied data from nearly 145,000 blood pressure measurements from more than 32,000 people aged 5 to 98 years, which were carried out over 43 years. As it turned out, blood pressure in women rises already at the age of 30 and continues to rise faster than in men throughout their lives.
Instead of comparing data on women with data on men, scientists compared women with women and men with men: according to the results, the functions of blood vessels in women begin to differ greatly from men over time. Although most men develop heart disease at an earlier age, women show signs of high blood pressure much earlier.
“Our data showed that an increase in blood pressure in women begins at an earlier age. Therefore, if we define the threshold for hypertension in the same way, then a 30-year-old woman with high blood pressure is likely to have a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease than a man with high blood pressure at the same age,”adds Cheng.
According to the authors of the work, their findings confirm the need for further research on the health of the female heart and can serve as a reminder to doctors that the treatment of cardiovascular diseases should be based on the gender of the patient.
“Lifestyle changes such as regular exercise, eating well, and avoiding smoking and drinking too much are the first things women can do if they have high blood pressure,” said cardiologist Lawrence Krakow, who was not involved in the study.