Dr. Anne Zutavern

Cardiovascular disease is not only a problem for men – new guidelines for prevention in women

In March 2007, the American Heart Association issued updated guidelines for the prevention of cardiovascular disease in women. For too long, the general public has perceived cardiovascular disease primarily as a health risk for men and its importance to women is still hardly recognised.

However:

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  Cardiovascular disease is responsible for about one-third of deaths in women and is thus the main cause of death in women throughout the world.
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  In many countries (e.g. the USA) more women than men die of cardiovascular disease.
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  In addition to the high mortality, cardiovascular disease is one of the most important chronic diseases in women. Approximately one-third of women in the USA live with cardiovascular disease. In China, too, the main risk factors for cardiovascular disease – elevated blood lipids and high blood pressure – are often present in women, and there is a high probability of cardiovascular disease in women also becoming a significant problem in that country, if it not already is.
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  Cardiovascular disease will continue to increase with longer life expectancy.

Only a few women, and all too few doctors, take cardiovascular disease seriously as a major health risk for women. Many of the commonly-used measures for the prevention of cardiovascular disease are based on study data collected from men, as hardly any of the early studies investigated their effects on women. For a long time, it was not sufficiently clear whether these preventive measures are also effective for women. However, many clinical studies on the prevention of cardiovascular disease in women have now been carried out, yielding new evidence that has been integrated into revised prevention guidelines for women.

The current guidelines are aimed at women over the age of 20 years. Basically, the risk of women developing cardiovascular disease is today generally rated higher than was previously assumed. Recommendations for prevention are now to a large extent comparable to those for men. For these reasons, a major objective of the new guidelines is to increase awareness in the general public, as well as to inform women and doctors that cardiovascular disease is not only a disease of men and that a large number of cases can be prevented with the right measures.

Because of the high incidence of this type of disease, even a small success in prevention would mean a substantial reduction in overall mortality and morbidity. The costs of cardiovascular disease are considerable. In the USA in 2006, they were an estimated USD 403 billion for health care and loss of productivity – many times higher than the costs associated with cancer (USD 190 billion) and HIV (USD 29 billion).