Research Reveals Women at Higher Risk for Heart Attack than Men

Sep, 2021 - By SMI

A study conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Zurich, Switzerland revealed that women are more prone to heart attack than men.

Fatigue, sleep disorders, and stress related to work are non-traditional risk factors that are associated with heart attack and stroke. For this study, the researchers considered data of 2007, 2012, and 2017 from the Swiss Health Survey. They collected data of 22,000 men and women. They compared the data amongst men and women to determine non-traditional risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. They found that the number of heart attack and stroke due to non-traditional risk factors is steeply rising in women than men. They added that this trend increased in case of full-time employed women from 38% in 2007 to 44% in 2017. They added, in women, juggling work and domestic responsibilities as well as not paying attention to specific health demands may be the reason for an increase in cardiovascular diseases. However, the researchers noted that overall stress related to work, irrespective of gender, increased from 59% in 2012 to 66% in 2017 and overall fatigue and tiredness increased from 23% to 29% over the same period. They even observed that sleep disorders increased over the same period, with severe sleep disorders increasing sharply in women than men. They added that the traditional risk factors for cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and increased cholesterol, had remained stable in the same period.

The researchers concluded that although factors such as diabetes, hypertension, raised cholesterol, obesity, smoking, physical inactivity are considered as modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, but this study added that non-traditional factors such as sleep disorders and work stress too can contribute to cardiovascular risk.