Two cardiological medical organizations in Argentina raised the alarm by releasing the results of a
worrying survey
.
The result reveals how, sometimes, the lack of knowledge about certain diseases - and especially if the person who is ignorant is a potential victim - can work against us and even
put life at risk
.
It is also a paradigmatic case because it involves
cardiovascular disease
: according to this survey, women continue to think that they are
less vulnerable
than men.
But the situation is even worse, because many doctors still operate under that precept today.
And reality indicates
the opposite
.
The work was carried out by the Argentine Cardiological Foundation (FCA) and the Argentine Society of Cardiology (SAC).
The data provided to
Clarín
has a purpose: to raise awareness about the problem and
seek to reverse it
.
Ana María Salvati, president of the FCA, admits in dialogue with this medium: “Doctors
are part of the problem
, because the automatic consciousness when thinking about cardiovascular disease is man.
There is a bias
.
If the woman comes with chest pain it is said that she may be stressed or distressed.
With men you immediately think of a heart attack.”
In Argentina, as in the rest of the world, cardiovascular disease is the
main cause of death in both sexes
.
But according to data from the vital statistics published by the Ministry of Health, mortality in women in 2022 (latest data available) was
28.4 percent
, while in men it reached
27 percent
.
The majority of women surveyed underestimate the impact of cardiovascular disease on them.
Photo: Shutterstock.
“ Women and doctors
must be educated
,” says Salvati and remembers: “I was a cardiology resident and I heard doctors say: 'Men's disease in women has a bad prognosis.'
A man's disease, they said.
And I'm old but I'm not a dinosaur.
Only now are younger doctors assuming that men and women experience
cardiovascular disease
in the same way .”
A dangerous prejudice
The explanation for this prejudice, according to the expert, is based on the fact that “while a woman is
of childbearing age, she has cardiovascular protection
due to estrogen.
Before, women died younger, but today they live many more years in menopause.
Her life expectancy is 78 years.”
For Salvati, “we must work hard like gynecologists did since the last century and
managed to lower
the level of deaths from gynecological tumors.
That is our goal, until tomorrow we talk about cardiovascular disease and no longer think that women are less vulnerable.”
Verónica Crosa, director of the Heart and Women Area of the SAC and the FCA, agrees that “the
perception of the risk
of cardiovascular disease is low among women.”
She supports this with the survey in which
3,338 women from all over the country
participated , of which
62 percent
considered that the main disease that can affect their health and limit their life expectancy is cancer, mainly breast cancer.
Only
one in three women
responded that cardiovascular disease is the main cause of morbidity and mortality.
According to Salvati, “women are exposed to the
same conventional risk factors
as men, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, obesity and high cholesterol, with some differences in the impact of each of them. predisposing to the development of coronary atherosclerosis.”
And he adds that "in addition, unique risk factors
linked to the hormonal sphere and fertile age
operate in it , such as the age of menarche and menopause, hypertension during pregnancy, gestational diabetes, premature birth, low birth weight or
repeated abortions, which are associated with a
greater risk
of developing future cardiovascular disease.”
Víctor Mauro, president of the SAC, added that “there are
certain diseases
that predominate in women, such as autoimmune diseases and breast cancer, which also constitute risk factors by themselves or by the associated treatments.
Depression, a higher incidence of burn-out, multiple employment, a lower educational level, gender violence, lower remuneration for equal work responsibilities and a greater workload at home are additional risk
factors
strongly associated with cardiovascular disease. in women."
Paradoxically, women often
do not receive the same quality of care
for symptoms of cardiovascular disease that is given to men, and they tend to be
underdiagnosed
or arrive late to the most appropriate treatment due to factors such as a greater frequency of atypical symptoms in different patients. cardiovascular syndromes and
greater tolerance
to them.
“The most common example in women is acute myocardial infarction.
It is very common for the consultation
to be made late
after the onset of symptoms.
Precious time is lost which then leads to more extensive heart attacks, complications, delays in angioplasty or surgery procedures, with a mortality rate that
doubles that of men
,” said Crosa.
In the Argentine Registry of Heart Failure of the SAC it is observed that women have
"a higher incidence
of atrial fibrillation, thyroid dysfunction and preserved ventricular function, which is characterized not by contractile failure but by less elasticity of the heart during its filling", they explain from the institution.
And they add: "In the evolution, they had similar in-hospital mortality, but
a higher incidence of readmissions
and death at one month and one year of follow-up, compared to men."
Another issue that makes the problem more complex is gender bias.
According to Mauro, “women are
underrepresented in intervention studies
, whether of new drugs or procedures, so their effectiveness is less established and, therefore, the
risk of underuse
of potentially useful drugs is greater.”
”.
P.S.