Woman may soon be monitoring their eating habits and cholesterol levels more closely after a French study discovered woman are more likely than men to die after suffering a heart attack.
Researchers at the University Hospital of Besancon in France have found that women who were admitted to hospital after suffering a heart attack were less likely than men to have follow-up treatments, Reuters reported.
Treatments include angiography, where blood vessels are injected with dye to find vessel blockages, and an angioplasty, which clears blockages.
The study, which monitored more than 3500 patients who were treated for heart attacks between January 2006 and December 2007, also found that women were twice as likely as men to die within a month of suffering a heart attack.
Chief cardiologist at the University Hospital of Besancon, Dr Francois Schiele, who presented the research at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Atlanta recently, said women should be treated with all recommended strategies, including invasive ones.
“This suggests that we could reduce mortality in female patients by using more invasive procedures,” he said.
In earlier major heart studies, the majority of patients have been men, leaving women largely understudied in comparison, Reuters reported.
However, these studies have also suggested women have a higher risk of death after a heart attack than men, with no clear indication why. But, researchers say the answer may lie in the biological differences between men and women.
