Doctors may be slower to investigate women for coronary heart disease and less aggressive in managing the condition due to ageism and sexism, a conference on women and heart disease has been told.
Dr Colm Bradley, Professor of General Practice at University College Cork, told delegates yesterday at the conference in Dublin organised by the Irish Heart Foundation that coronary illness was the most common cause of death for women in Ireland but was not being recognised by women or their doctors.
There were several explanations for this, including that heart disease manifested itself differently in men than women. Women were more likely to experience angina whereas heart attack was more common in men.
Heart disease was responsible for 40 per cent of all deaths in Ireland, which did not fare well by EU standards where it tops the poll for coronary heart disease in men and comes third for women, putting it on a par with Eastern Europe.
He there was evidence doctors might be slower to investigate women for coronary heart disease and be less aggressive in their management of the condition which "may be due to ageism or sexism or both, but either way it must be tackled".
The scope of prevention must be emphasised for both sexes but with important differences. "In women smoking is an increasingly prevalent risk and it interacts adversely with oral contraception and with diabetes," he said.
Clinical epidemiologist Dr Mary Codd presented her report "50 years of heart Disease in Ireland - Mortality, Morbidity and Health Services Implications". She cited the high mortality rate associated with the disease in Ireland but the rates had been declining steadily - in 1999 they were 37 per cent lower for men than in 1985 while the rate in women had been reduced by 30 per cent.
Balancing this decline, however, was an increase in the elderly population and a higher survival rate among those experiencing early episodes of heart disease. Together they placed a significant burden on the health services as circulatory diseases were responsible for more hospital bed days than any other disease.