Heart disease now causes more deaths than most forms of cancer among Australian women, according to a university report.
The study, undertaken by the Australian Catholic University’s Mary McKillop Institute for Health, examined the impact of heart disease on Australian women. They looked at not only strokes and heart attacks but also broader at associated diseases such as kidney failure and diabetes.
Focusing on this wider perspective, the report entitled the Cardiovascular Risk and Diseases in Australian Women, found that heart disease was in fact the number one killer of women. It leads to 31,000 deaths every year, which is much higher than the 12,000 deaths of women caused by common cancers, including breast cancer. Inside this 31,000 statistic were a whopping 3,000 women who died before they could even be treated in hospital.
Maja-Lisa Lochan, one of the lead researchers behind the report, said that women often failed to get medical treatment in the case of a heart attack because they didn’t recognise the symptoms of an attack.
“They often think it’s asthma, tiredness, influenza and … often related to diseases other than heart disease,” Professor Lochan said. “They avoid seeking treatment… more often than men.”
Preventable Heart Disease At 60%
Professor Lochan also noted that the obesity epidemic has led to much higher risk factors for heart disease in younger women, and that the number of deaths could be easily reduced if certain causative factors were focused on.
“Sixty per cent of the causes of heart disease in women and related issues are preventable,” she said.
“The main causes are high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and smoking.”
“It has to do with the Australian diet, which has a high content of sugar. All these risk factors are related to lifestyle and treatable conditions.”
Worryingly, the report also concluded that many women falsely believed that heart disease was a condition that was mainly suffered by men.
Gendered Awareness Campaigns Required
Currently, Australia’s health system spends about $3 billion annually on cardiovascular disease-related hospital care for women. In order to reduce this figure, and also the number of women diagnosed with heart disease, Professor Lochan said the government needs to invest more money in awareness campaigns, as well as gender-specific guidelines and prevention programs.
“The Government should also increase funding for cardiovascular disease research in women,” she said.
The report, and its findings, will be presented to members of the Federal Parliament at a summit on cardiovascular disease taking place in Canberra sometime today.
