Hot Flashes Can Predict Heart Disease in Women
Hot
flashes in women are commonly considered a benign symptom of menopause,
and so they are often disregarded by health professionals in the
diagnosis of other conditions. A recent study found that this approach
is wrong, as frequent hot flashes may point to a wildly different type
of health issue - cardiovascular problems. The researchers link hot
flashes and an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, making them an
important diagnostic tool.
Why
is it only now that researchers started considering hot flashes a
manifestation of conditions other than menopause? The reason appears to
be that this symptom is observed exclusively in women, and much of what
we know about heart disease is modeled on male patients, so much so that
women have a 50% higher chance to be misdiagnosed following a heart attack than men, according to the doctors.
And
this is a systemic issue, with medical professionals admitting that
they’re lacking the preventative tools for cardiovascular issues in
women. Hot flashes might be one such tool, with the researchers who
conducted the experiment pointing out that the recurrence of hot flashes
in women predicted their chance of suffering from a heart attack and
stroke in the future.
The study observed the health of 3.300 participants over the course of 22
years. The research is part of the Study of Women’s Health Across the
Nation, which enrolled African American, Hispanic, Asian American and
white women aged 42-52 in the 1990s.
The
study concluded that frequent and persistent hot flashes during the
menopausal transition increased a woman’s risk of suffering from
cardiovascular issues by 50-80%. Certainly, this is
just the first step in understanding how cardiovascular disease differs
between men and women, and hopefully, other large longitudinal studies
like this one will shed more light to the issue and help doctors develop
effective preventative interventions for women at risk of heart
disease.
Meanwhile,
what we as individuals can do to take care of our health better is to
stay active, eat healthy, and undergo health checks, such as annual
monitoring of cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and blood sugar.