Heart Diseases are More Common in Diabetic Women: Study

Diabetic women have 44 percent increased chances of developing heart diseases than men, according to a study.

It is known that men are more susceptible to heart problems than their female counter-parts. A study led by Australian researchers found coronary heart diseases (CHD) by plaque formation and narrowing of heart arteries are more common in diabetic women than healthy women or men with diabetes.

The experts examined 50-year-old records from 64 studies involving 858,507 people and nearly 28,203 CHD cases to note the diseases incidence in individuals with risk factors like stroke and diabetes history.

It was observed that diabetic women were three times more vulnerable to heart diseases than those without the condition. Diabetic men are twice likely to have CHD compared to healthy men. Merging both these finding, researchers discovered diabetes increases CHD risk by 44 percent in women. The current study used citation from past trials that suggest the likelihood for heart diseases remains consistent for women of all age groups, race and religion.

Women with diabetes are inconsistent with the treatment and do not actively control their blood sugar levels or other health disorders, which gives rise to heart diseases. In addition, females are subject to more metabolic deterioration than males that ups their possibility of developing diabetes. Moreover, most women are unhealthy and have very low glucose tolerance before starting treatment and medications to control insulin levels in the body. The symptoms of CHD are easier to detect in men than in women.

"If confirmed, the implementation of sex-specific interventions before diabetes becomes manifest such as increased screening for pre-diabetes , especially in women, combined with more stringent follow-up of women at high risk for diabetes, such as women with a history of gestational diabetes could have a substantial impact on the prevention of CHD," write the authors in the news release.

The authors urge women to get regular screenings and tests. They plan on investigating further to determine exact mechanisms to explain the gender disparity for diabetes triggered CHD.

More information is available online in the journal Diabetologia.