Wednesday, September 5, 2007

We ARE different than men...

And that could kill us.

As a woman who works in women's health (and has a family history of heart disease), you can imagine I might be interested in the new study showing that women with heart disease may respond differently to certain treatments than do men.

In fact, according to Kaiser, the American College of Cardiology revised its treatment guidelines to recommend that doctors be more cautious about subjecting women at low risk of heart disease to invasive procedure, recommending that they might want to see if further symptoms develop in a woman with a clogged artery rather than performing an angioplasty.

(A Swedish study of 184 women with heart conditions showed that eight women who underwent an invasive procedure died after one year compared to one woman who died while waiting for further diagnosis.)

Docs are unsure why there's a difference but suggested that gender differences should be further studied. I'd be inclined to agree.

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