Women with type 2 diabetes at greater
cardiovascular risk than men
Written by Honor Whiteman
Published:
heart disease than
men, according to the new statement.
Published in the journal Circulation,
the statement also says women with type 2 diabetes may need to
take more
action than men to lower their risk for heart attack and stroke.
Type 2 diabetes accounts for around
90-95% of all diabetes cases in the US, affecting men
and women
at similar rates; around 12.6 million women and 13 million men aged
20 and older have the condition.
According to the American Heart
Association (AHA), adults with diabetes are around two to four times
more
likely to have heart disease or stroke than those without
diabetes, primarily because diabetes
patients are at greater risk for high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity - key risk factors
for
cardiovascular problems.
Increasingly, however, studies have
suggested that cardiovascular risks among adults with diabetes may
vary by sex,
and such findings are reflected in the new AHA scientific statement.
|
Type 2 diabetes puts
women at twice the risk for heart disease
|
Judith G. Regensteiner, PhD, chair of
the AHA's statement writing group and professor of medicine and
director of the
Center for Women's Health Research at the University of Colorado School of
Medicine,
and coauthors claim that women with type 2 diabetes are more than
twice as likely to develop
coronary heart disease - the most common
form of heart disease - than men.
Fast facts about
diabetes
Around 29.1 million
people in the US have diabetes - 1 in 11 Americans
Around 86 million
adults in the US have pre-diabetes
As well as heart
disease, diabetes can cause blindness, kidney failure and lower-extremity
amputations, among other serious health complications.
quick_facts
Black and Hispanic women with type 2
diabetes are also disproportionately affected by coronary
heart disease
compared with men, the authors note.
Women with type 2 diabetes are more
likely to have heart attacks earlier in life than men and are
more likely to
die after a first heart attack, according to the statement.
Compared with men with type 2 diabetes,
women with the condition may need to engage in more
frequent and intense
exercise in order to lower their risk for cardiovascular disease.
Regensteiner and colleagues also point
to differences between men and women with type 2 diabetes
in the use of
strategies to protect cardiovascular health. For example, women were less
likely than
men to use cholesterol-lowering drugs - such as statins - blood
pressure-lowering medications and aspirin.
Women with type 2 diabetes were also
less likely to have their blood pressure under control than
men and
were less likely to undergo procedures to open blocked arteries, such as
angioplasty.
Additionally, the statement authors
found women with type 2 diabetes develop the condition based
on sex-specific
variances, including the presence of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and
gestational diabetes.
Commenting on what the statement shows,
Regensteiner says:
"Cardiovascular disease may be more
deadly for women with type 2 diabetes than it is for men.
While we don't fully understand how the
inherent hormonal differences between men and women
affect risk, we do know
that some risk factors for heart disease and stroke affect women differently
than men and there are disparities in how these risk factors are treated."
The authors say further research is
required in order to gain a better understanding of why women
with type 2
diabetes are at greater cardiovascular risk than men, as well as the reasons
why women
of certain ethnicities appear to be at greater risk.
"To improve health equity in women
and men with diabetes, we need to understand and improve
both the biological
reasons for the disparities and also control cardiovascular risk factors
equally
in both women and men," explains Regensteiner. "This
statement is a call for action to do the
compelling research that is so
important for all people with diabetes."
Last month, Medical News Today
reported on a study that linked exposure to air pollution among women
with type
2 diabetes to increased risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke.
Written by Honor Whiteman
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