Thespanish womenhave a higher prevalence of some metabolic risk factors, such ascholesteroland theobesity, Ythey are more sedentaryThat men. Thus, one in two women has high cholesterol and is also sedentary, at the same time asfour out of ten are obese. ? However, among them there is a lower incidence of smoking, hypertension and diabetes than in the male group ,? according to Dr. José Ramón Baneas, professor of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health of the Autonomous University of Madrid, during the XI National Meeting on Women’s Health and Medicine (SAMEM 2011).
However, in women older than 60, the prevalence of these factors is close to or even higher than that of men of the same age, he pointed out. Therefore, women have a lower risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases than men until menopause, when protection is gradually lost due to the cessation of estrogen production, and biological and behavioral risk factors become more frequent. However,in Spain more women die than men from cardiovascular disease, because four out of every ten deaths that occur in women and three out of ten in men are for this reason. “Women, despite having less cardiovascular risk than men, as cardiovascular disease is much more frequent in the advanced ages of life, this is where the number of women is much higher than that of men,” said Dr. Banegas.
In this sense, thestrokeIt is the main form of cardiovascular disease in women, while in men it is coronary disease. This is due to the fact that women have a lower coronary risk than men and, therefore, a greater probability of reaching advanced ages in which mortality from stroke is more frequent.
