Treating high blood pressure had until recently a universal kind of approach. Regardless the age when this problem occurs and the gender of the patient, prescribing the same treatment to everyone was believed to have the desired effect for preventing life threatening conditions like strokes and heart attacks.
New findings proved that the matters are completely different for men and women and that women, are more prone to experience the consequences of a high blood pressure when compared to men.
Gender Differences
To the surprise of the medical world the new findings linked the blood pressure to several gender specifics. These are causing the women to develop high blood pressure and related health conditions sooner in life, and more often than men. Hormones and hemodynamic processes are different for men and women and in case of women the hypertensive agents manifest in the present of a larger number of factors.
The Study
Therapeutic Advances in Cardiovascular Disease Journal published a study conducted by dr. Carlos Ferrario at the North Carolina’s Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Together with a team of scientists, Ferrario focused on determining how the gender of a person influences the occurrence of elevated blood pressure in the search of the right treatment for each gender.
The scientists conducted a study on 100 men and women over 50, all suffering from high blood pressure with no significant health conditions that might have caused this problem.
All participants had approximately the same blood pressure levels. Further tests discovered that 30 – 40% more women had cardiovascular diseases because of the physiological characteristics of the female blood system and the related hormones influencing its functioning.
Statistics and Future Steps
In the last decade, 30% less men died from cardiovascular diseases but the number of women dead because of the same type of health issues remained the same. The purpose of the study was to offer a clearer perspective on what drugs, in what dosage would better help prevent life threatening problems in case of women.
In US, at every 3 people, 1 is suffering from high blood pressure. In these conditions drastic lifestyle changes are mandatory especially because currently the heart conditions are the leading death cause among women.
Dr. Ferrario concluded in his study that the future steps will be made to create new protocols and new treatments but according to the study results, for women, the blood pressure has to be treated earlier and more aggressively.
