Women may no longer bank upon their ‘heart protecting hormone’ as significant changes in lifestyle such as stress besides co-morbid conditions like obesity and diabetes are countering heart protecting activity of oestrogen, say experts.
According to a survey, “Visualising the extent of heart disease in Indian women,” VEDNA, released recently, which covered almost 600 health care professionals of metros and non-metro cities, at least 55 per cent cardiologists observed 16-20 per cent growth in cardiovascular diseases among women in the last five years. At least 41 per cent of the doctors claimed 10-15 per cent growth in such diseases among women in the age group of 20-40 years — the category which was earlier considered protected from heart ailments.
“Quite contrary to conventional medical ideology that due to oestrogen hormone women, especially menstruating ones, are safe from heart diseases, lately, there has been a significant rise in number of female cardiovascular patients,” said JPS Sawhney, senior cardiologist at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here.
Chandrakant S Pandav, head of department, Centre for Community Medicine at AIIMS felt that working women were more likely to get exposed to stress and unhealthy lifestyle and, therefore, more prone to CVD diseases as compared to non-working women.