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Diabetes makes women significantly more susceptible to heart attacks
Although it is now increasingly common in younger women to a heart attack, but men are still affected more often. According to new findings, this ratio changes in type 2 diabetes to the opposite. Thus, diabetic women more often suffer a heart attack or stroke than male diabetics of the same age.
Younger women suffer less heart attack
Heart problems of women are underestimated. This may be related to some experts still seeing the heart attack as a typical male disease. But just a few months ago, an investigation showed that women have a higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. Women suffer infarction, especially in old age.
Myocardial infarction: Women who have diabetes suffer faster from an infarct. Picture: SENTELLO - fotolia At a younger age, they have some sort of gender protection against cardiovascular disease compared to peers of the same age. However, type 2 diabetes appears to be associated with the loss of this benefit. According to new findings, diabetic women suffer a heart attack or stroke more often than male diabetics, reports the news agency APA. This has now been determined by the German Diabetes Society on the occasion of a scientific statement by the American Heart Association.
Type 2 diabetes makes women more prone to infarction
"It has been known for a long time that menopausal women experience a heart attack much less frequently than men of the same age," said Dirk Müller-Wieland, Vice President of the German Diabetes Association (DDG). "The fact that a diabetes disease reverses this ratio, the public is not aware," said the expert, according to APA. But the data, the US cardiologists have now set out in a detailed overview is clear. According to a statement by the DDG, women with type 2 diabetes contract a heart attack or stroke earlier and die more frequently. In addition, chronic heart failure, a long-term outcome of a surviving heart attack, is more common in women with type 2 diabetes. The causes are not completely clear according to Müller-Wieland. "One reason could be that the consequences of type 2 diabetes for women are underestimated by doctors and sufferers," so his guess.
Blood glucose levels difficult to adjust
For example, women are less likely to receive high blood pressure or high cholesterol medication, which are important risk factors for heart attack and stroke. "They also take after a heart attack rare aspirin, which can prevent a second heart attack," said Müller-Wieland. To make matters worse, in patients with type 2 diabetes, the blood sugar, blood lipid and blood pressure values are often harder to set than in male patients due to the hormonal situation. In addition, hormonal disorders could play a role in gender difference. Thus, between six and eight percent of all women of childbearing age have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). This is in addition to cycle disorders and an increase in male sex hormones also associated with a loss of insulin.
Prevent cardiovascular disease
"Women with PCOS are often overweight with an unfavorable accumulation of adipose tissue in the abdominal area, which further worsens the risk profile," said DDG President Baptist Gallwitz of the University Hospital Tübingen. The German Diabetes Society therefore appeals to doctors to take into account the particular risk of women with diabetes in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases. "But even the women themselves can do something," says Gallwitz.
"Studies show that women with type 2 diabetes benefit more than men from a lifestyle change." In addition to a healthy diet, this also includes physical activity. Health experts always advise against sports against diabetes and cardiovascular disease. According to the current state of knowledge women should show more commitment than men, but the hurdles are not insurmountable. "In the Nurses Health Study, a long-term study of American nurses, women with diabetes were able to reduce their cardiovascular risk by just two hours of exercise a week," said Gallwitz. (Ad)