Young women with stable coronary heart disease are more likely than men to have reduced blood flow to the heart if they're under emotional stress, but not physical stress, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2014.
Compared to men of the same age, when subjected to a mental stress test, women:
age 55 and younger had three times greater reduction in blood flow to the heart;
age 56-64 had double the reduction in blood flow to the heart; and
age 65 and older had no difference in blood flow to the heart.
"Women who develop heart disease at a younger age make up a special high-risk group because they are disproportionally vulnerable to emotional stress," said Viola Vaccarino, M.D., Ph.D., study author and chairwoman of Cardiovascular Research and Epidemiology at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta, Georgia.
Women generally develop heart disease later in life than men. However, younger women who have premature heart attacks are more likely to die than men of similar age. Risk factors, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, don't explain these mortality differences.
In the study, researchers gave a standardized mental stress test and, on a separate day, a traditional physical stress test (exercise treadmill test or pharmacological stress test) to 534 patients with stable coronary heart disease. For the mental stress protocol, patients were asked to imagine a stressful life situation and deliver a speech about this story in front of a small audience.
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