Men and women share many of the same risk aspects for heart problems (CVD), a big international study has found – the primary such study to incorporate people not only from high income countries, but additionally from low- and middle-income countries where the burden of CVD is the best.

The study was published today in The Lancet.

The worldwide study assessed risk aspects, including metabolic (resembling hypertension, obesity and diabetes), behavioural (smoking and food plan), and psychosocial (economic status and depression) in about 156,000 people with out a history of CVD between the ages of 35 and 70. Living in 21 low, middle and high-income countries on five continents, they were followed for a median of 10 years.

Men and women have similar CVD risk aspects, which emphasizes the importance of an analogous strategy for the prevention of CVD in men and ladies.”

Marjan Walli-Attaei, paper’s first writer, research fellow on the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS)

Overall, women had a lower risk of developing CVD than men, especially at younger ages.

Nonetheless, food plan was more strongly related to CVD risk in woman than men – “something that is not been previous described, and which requires independent confirmation,” said Salim Yusuf, lead investigator of the study, senior writer, executive director of PHRI, professor of drugs at McMaster University, and cardiologist at HHS.

High levels of bad (LDL) cholesterol and symptoms of depression were more strongly related to CVD risk in men than in women.

The patterns of those findings were generally similar in high-income countries and upper-middle-income countries, and in low-income and lower-middle-income countries.

Funding was provided by the PHRI, Hamilton Health Sciences Research Institute, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (including through the Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research via the Ontario SPOR Support Unit), the Ontario branch of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

Source:

Journal reference:

Walli-Attaei, M., et al. (2022) Metabolic, behavioural, and psychosocial risk aspects and heart problems in women compared with men in 21 high-income, middle-income, and low-income countries: an evaluation of the PURE study. The Lancet. doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(22)01441-6.