Higher Risk For Heart Attacks example essay topic

Heart attacks are less common in women then men. However, they do occur and when they do women are more likely to die. Women who have heart attacks normally are worse then men who have heart attacks. Age has played a big role in heart attacks. Men who are older, the risk goes up with age. Women's risk of death is the same up to the age of 75 years old.

Scientist are still looking into the reason for this. A study showed that 155,565 women and 229,313 men that had heart attacks and were treated at 1,658 hospitals showed that younger women are at high risk and need special attention. This research came from The New England Journal of Medicine. Another study was also done, which involved 3,662 women and 8,480 men who all had heart problems. This study also showed that women are more likely to die then men.

It also said that women, who were at risk, are more likely to a weakened heart muscle and a very low blood pressure. When they performed an electrocardiogram, the results from this were very heard to tell if the woman was having a heart attack or not. This study also showed that women had more complications from the treatment. One of the complications being that they had bleeding from the blood thing drugs that are usually given to patients who have a history of heart attacks. In women, heart attacks are known to be different from those in men. Blocked arteries are more likely to bring out heart attacks in men.

In women, clear arteries were found but yet they were still having heart attacks. It is said that women who were still having these heart attacks were probably caused by spasms in the arteries and large blood clots. In the United States of America, heart disease is the leading cause of death. The American Heart Association says that 9,000 women aging from 29 to 44 had heart attacks in 1997, in comparison to 32,000 men. The American Heart Association also says that 6.1 percent of the women died from a heart attack and were under the age of 50, this was compared with the 2.9 percent of men. Dr. Viola Vaccarino, who is a professor of epidemiology at Yale University School of Medicine, said "Heart disease is less common in these young women, but those who get it prematurely appear to have more severe disease in some ways and they have more severe heart attacks.

Women need to work on what we know to be risk factors, such as high blood pressure, low cholesterol, smoking obesity and diabetes". Dr. Judith Hochman is the director of the cardiac care unit and cardiac Medical Center in New York. She had also done a study on men and women and heart attacks. She found that women did better then men when they were treated for a condition known as unstable angina.

Unstable angina is like a chest pain the proceeds a heart attack. Dr. Hochman also said, "The message is, don't ignore symptoms, don't delay seeking care". Women who do have heart attacks do not always have the usual heart attacks symptoms, such as chest pain. Some women may just become short of breathe or fell discomfort in the throat or the upper part of the stomach.

There are three factors account for the survival of men and women when it comes down to heart attacks. Women who have had heart attacks, their condition is more likely to become worse such as diabetes and stroke. Women also take a longer time to get to the hospital and when they do get there, they tend not o get treated as a patient who is having a heart attack. So therefore, they are not given aspirin, beta-blocker drugs or blood thinning drugs. However, these three factors only accounted for one third of the death rate differences. There are still many different theories about how and why women have a higher risk for heart attacks then men.

Estrogen levels may be one theory. Higher estrogen levels in younger women are less likely to have atherosclerosis, which is the build up of fatty plaques, which trigger heart attacks. This happens by the blocking of arteries that supply blood to the heart muscle. However, the forming of plaque can be a good thing.

Sometimes when plaque develops and blood flow through the arteries it becomes less. The body replaces it by making new blood vessels, but once again women are less likely to make new blood vessels as compared to men. Blockage of the arteries is possible to develop in women even if they do not have a severe case of atherosclerosis. However, some studies do show that women may form large blood clots. A forming of a large blood clot can shut down an artery.

The reason why the clots form is because women platelets, which are blood cells involved in clotting, may clump together more which will cause an initiating clot formation. It is also said hat women are more likely to have artery spasm them men. Having an artery spasm may be a cause of a heart attack. Artery spasm are more prone to women because there are conditions that are related to this. Some of those conditions are migraine headaches and Reynaud's syndrome.

Reynaud's syndrome is when the hands and feet become cold and numb. More research is needed to explain why women are at a higher risk for a heart attack then men. We also need a better way to detect heart problems in younger women before it becomes a bigger problem. Dr. Va arino says, "The symptoms and signs we have now are based on what we know about men and older women. What we are doing may not be good enough".

Research has shown that women who have heart attacks are more likely to die then men. However, in young women, the numbers seem to be increasing. The following is different rates death during hospitalization for patients who have had a heart attack. The comparison is between men and women. For men and women who are at the age of less the fifty, about 3 percent were men and 6 percent were women. For the ages of 50-54, about 4 percent were men and 7 percent were women.

Ages 55-59, about 6 percent were men and 9 percent were women. Ages 60-64, about 7 percent were men and 11 percent were women. Ages 65-69, about 11 percent were men and 13 percent women. Ages 70-74, about 14 percent were men and 16 percent were women. Ages 75-79, about 17 percent were men and 18 percent were women. Ages 80-84, about 22 percent were men and 21 percent were women.

Finally, ages 85-89, about 25 percent were men and 24 percent were women. This study came from the New England Journal of Medicine. From this study, we can see that women at a young age are more at risk then men. Once the women become older though they become tied with men and men have a higher percentage as the age of them become older. In order to prevent having a heart attack there are a few factors one can do.

Having a healthy diet and exercising properly is just two of them. Going to the doctors for regular check up will help too. After reading this article, I have learned that there are many different reasons why women or men have heart attacks. It is scary to that such a large amount of women do die from this.

Previous to reading this article I did not know that women had such a high risk for having a heart attack. I feel though if you eat right and are an active person, you will be at less of a risk for having such a frightening thing happen to you, such as a heart attack..