The heart of women even more under stress

Le-stress-a-des-effets-néfastes-sur-le-cœur-des-femmes-que-sur-celui-des-hommesWhen in the past ten years, numerous studies have highlighted the disastrous effects of stress for cardio-vascular diseases, at the extent that they are in first place on the list of risk-factors, even before tobacco and cholesterol. Today, it is their impact, which varies depending on sex, arising many questions among quite a number of specialists.

In deed, men and women are once again unequal concerning stress and its associated risks. This inequality results from the post-infarct care of women, who have little incentive of undergoing a re-education after the painful accident, and an even lesser concern about its serious consequences, because a re-education is permitting amongst other things to learn to understand one’s own stress and to cope with it. Among the other recorded inequalities there are : those concerning exams or interventions, like angiographies, electrocardiograms under effort, angioplasties or a coronary bypass. There again, women are less screened, with the consequence of a 7% higher mortality rate than men. This is without taking into account the negative emotions resulting from stress, having for a woman more significance, and which could reinforce coronary diseases. Although complementary studies may be necessary to substantiate these findings, the stress syndrome provides again the evidence for the importance of planning long term studies, including even more so women, who are up to today underrepresented in these, in order to recommend equal care concerning cardio-vascular diseases.

Finally, concerning this prevention as well as the care-taking, more knowledge is needed of the existence of this close relation between sex and cardio-vascular diseases.