A new study supported by the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) has concluded that women aged 55 years and younger face nearly double the risk of re-hospitalisation in the year they suffer a heart attack compared to men. As per the study co-morbidities, including obesity, congestive heart failure, previous stroke, and other issues like depression are the likely risk factors which caused the disparity.
The study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), which is a part of the NIH, was published on Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
“The study reveals a need for paying greater attention to these non-cardiac risk factors in younger women in order help design better clinical interventions and improve outcomes after discharge for a heart attack,” said author Harlan M Krumholz, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, in an official release.
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Findings further suggested that there is an immediate need for closer health monitoring of women aged between 18 to 55 years who have heart attacks following hospital discharge to get a better understanding of the causes.
It was known that women aged 55 years and younger have about twice the risk of in-hospital death from a heart attack, but it was unclear if they are also at risk of cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular complications a year after discharge.
Thus, to know more, the researchers analysed the NHLBI’s VIRGO (Variation in Recovery: Role of Gender on Outcomes of Young AMI Patients) external link study, which provided data on a broad range of risk factors related to outcomes among women and men who have had heart attacks.
The study observed 2,979 patients in US hospitals, out of which 2,007 were women and 972 were men.
Risk of Heart Attacks in Women
The analysis of the data showed that nearly 30 percent of these patients were hospitalised again in the immediate year of their discharge from the hospital.
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These cases peaked within the first month of a patient’s discharge, then slowly declined in subsequent months.
The findings suggested that women had nearly twice the risk about 1.65 times higher risk of rehospitalisation than men.
Coronary-related complications such as heart attacks and angina external links, related to blood vessel blockage were the leading cause of rehospitalisation for both genders.
However, the rate of coronary-related complications for women was nearly 1.5 times higher than men as per the study. This was driven by risk factors such as obesity and diabetes.
Non-Cardiac rehospitalisation risk
Women had over twice, nearly 2.10 times the risk for non-cardiac rehospitalisations than men. These were caused by non-heart-related issues such as depression, bleeding, digestive problems, and pneumonia.
The reasons behind the higher incidences of non-cardiac rates were unclear, but the researchers found a higher percentage of women tended to identify as low-income) and had a higher history of depression.
...Both these factors are often associated with poor health status.
Depression and heart attack
The study observed that the risk of depression increases after a heart attack and may be a risk factor in higher hospitalisation rates due to undertreatment of the condition in women.
However, further assessment is needed to understand how these factors affect women more than men.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
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