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Researchers warn that young women are generally unaware of the risks of cardiovascular disease, even though they remain the leading cause of death for American women.
Among young women surveyed, only 1 in 10 said that heart disease was the leading cause of death among women and fewer than one in 20 thought it was the main health problem for women. "More than half of the adult women interviewed are aware of this fact, so the very low awareness we found was surprising, especially since we sampled a population of young women with access to health care." said the authors of the study, Doctors Holly Gooding and Courtney Brown. Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, said in an email.
In the short term, young women are at low risk of heart disease and blood vessels, but their lifetime risk is high, wrote the authors on March 5 Journal of the American Heart Association. "There is clear evidence that traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure, blood cholesterol and blood sugar, have their origins in childhood and adolescence," they said. added.
Gooding and Brown and their colleagues asked survey questions at the American Heart Association (AHA) to 331 young women ages 15 to 24, to badess their degree of awareness of cardiovascular disease – including atherosclerosis, heart attacks, strokes and heart failure – and how. to be warned. Next, they compared participants' responses to those of a 2012 AHA survey of 1,227 women over 25 years old.
Teens tend to focus on the present and not think long-term, which may partly explain the results. Dr. Claire Duvernoy, who launched the women's cardiology program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, agrees. "That's exactly what teens tend to do and it's an obstacle to such education, where risk is more of a thing in the long run," Reuters Health Duvernoy told Reuters. did not participate in the study. Concentrate on the benefits they will get now, when they are young, through a healthy lifestyle.
The authors believe that the most effective way to improve cardiovascular health is to treat risk factors before symptoms develop. However, it can be difficult to educate young people about cardiovascular health, as adolescents do not tend to discuss cardiovascular disease with their doctor, they said. According to them, a multifaceted approach is needed: improving school curricula, training pediatricians and promoting heart health online.
Dr. Maryl Johnson, Independent Expert of the Faculty of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin, believes that the message to youth "must be strengthened at every opportunity and in a useful and non-pejorative manner ", especially with regard to the factors related to their way of life. direct control, such as smoking and lack of exercise.
Dr. Beth Abramson, director of the Heart and Stroke Prevention Center at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Canada, told Reuters Health: "We are witnessing an epidemic of risk factors among youth …[and] it's still true that women sometimes can not believe [heart disease] can happen to them. "
"The face of heart disease has changed, it's no longer a disease reserved for white, gray-haired men, so we need to make sure these young women (…) are aware of their future risks," he said. Abramson.
-Tamara Mathias
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