Heart Failure Declines
in Women, but Not Men
Excerpt By Keith Mulvihill, Reuter's Health

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - New cases of heart failure have declined steadily for women over the last 50 years, but the rates remain nearly unchanged in men, new study findings show.

The main reason for the difference between the sexes is that men and women tend to develop heart failure for different reasons, the study's lead author, Dr. Daniel Levy of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, told Reuters Health.

An estimated 5 million Americans have congestive heart failure, a chronic condition in which the heart loses its ability to pump blood efficiently. The disease causes fatigue and shortness of breath as fluid accumulates in the lungs and tissues. Leading causes are damage to heart muscle from coronary artery disease or high blood pressure.

In the current study, Levy and colleagues evaluated statistics for 10,311 men and women between 1950 and 1999 and identified 1,075 cases of heart failure. The findings are published in the October 31st issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

The number of new cases of heart failure dropped by 30% to 40% among women between 1950 and 1999, but changed very little in men over the same time period, Levy explained in an interview with Reuters Health.

While both high blood pressure and heart attack increase a person's risk for later developing heart failure, Levy notes that high blood pressure-related heart failure in women is more common. And in general, major "advances have occurred in the awareness, treatment and control of high blood pressure, which has reduced the number of woman who go on and develop heart failure," Levy said.

Men who develop heart failure, on the other hand, often have suffered a heart attack, explained Levy. And since more men are surviving more severe heart attacks, and are therefore more likely too later develop heart failure, the rate of heart failure among men has not seen a similar decline.

The study also showed that mortality risk after a diagnosis of heart failure declined by about one third from the 1950s to the 1990s.

"Despite the favorable trends in survival, heart failure remains highly fatal; among subjects who were given a diagnosis of heart failure in the 1990s, more than 50% were dead at five years," the researchers note.

"We know that treatment of high blood pressure reduces mortality in those with heart failure by 50%, however only about 27% of people with hypertension have their condition medically controlled," Levy said.

If physicians could improve blood pressure control in the community they could have a greater impact on deaths from heart failure, he added.

SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine 2002;347:1397-1444.

Reference Source 89

For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use
PreventDisease.com's "Quick Prevention Resources".