Young women 'less healthy' than similar aged men before heart attacks

Young women most often have poor health and quality of life compared to men of same age before they suffer a heart attack, new research has claimed.

Rachel Dreyer, Ph.D., the study's lead author and a research fellow in cardiovascular medicine at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, said that in comparison with young men, females under 55 years are less likely to have heart attacks, however, when they do occur, women are more likely to have medical problems, poorer physical and mental functioning, more chest pain and a poorer quality of life in the month leading up to their heart attack.

Researchers surveyed 2,990 women and men from an international study of heart attack patients 18-55 years old and used general health measures and a disease-specific questionnaire that assessed patients' chest pain and quality of life prior to their heart attacks.

They found that women had a poorer physical and mental health with more physical limitations prior to their heart attacks than similar-aged men with heart attacks.

They were also more likely to have other conditions associated with heart disease: diabetes (40 percent vs. 27 percent); obesity (55 percent vs. 48 percent); history of stroke (6 percent vs. 3 percent); heart failure (6 percent vs. 2 percent); renal failure (13 percent vs. 9 percent); and depression (49 percent vs. 24 percent).