Heart attack is getting younger and younger! A study from Anzhen Hospital showed that the first myocardial infarction in young people is more common in men. Among cardiovascular risk factors, the smoking rate of young myocardial infarction patients is as high as 72.7%, ranking first, followed by hypertension and obesity.
And recently, a new study from Yale University proposed that 85% of acute myocardial infarction in young people ≤55 years old is caused by 7 risk factors, including diabetes, depression, hypertension, current Smoking, family history of premature myocardial infarction, low family income, hypercholesterolemia.
The study also found significant gender differences in acute myocardial infarction risk factors.
Specifically,diabetes was most strongly associated with acute myocardial infarction in women, followed by smoking, depression, hypertension, low family income, and a family history of premature myocardial infarction.
The study found that the Depression Attributable Fraction (PAF) was 25.5% in women and 8.7% in men; the PAF for hypercholesterolemia was 49.1% in men and 1.5% in women.
Low household income was also significantly associated with acute myocardial infarction in women, but not in men.
The authors say that gender-related characteristics, such as psychological stress, depression and poverty, play an important role in women’s MI risk and should be targeted with a multifaceted gender-based approach risk factor management.
Smoking is currently the strongest associated with acute MI in men, followed by family history of premature MI, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, depression, diabetes, obesity, and physical inactivity.
Hypercholesterolemia and physical inactivity were significantly associated with acute MI in men but not in women.
The contribution of risk factors to the overall risk of acute myocardial infarction varied by gender.
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In addition, women with diabetes (26.8% vs. 9.9%), hypertension (40.5% vs. 31.8%) and current smoking (38.9% vs. 35.1%) had higher PAF than men , while men with a family history of premature myocardial infarction (16.8% vs. 9.6%) had higher PAF than women.
The combined PAF for the four preventable risk factors (current smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes, and depression) was 80.2% in women and 63.2% in men.
All 7 risk factors (diabetes, depression, hypertension, current smoking, family history of premature myocardial infarction, low family income, hypercholesterolemia) had a PAF of 83.9% in women , 85.1% among men.
The study used a case-control design and included 2264 patients with acute myocardial infarction from the VIRGO study, 2264 age- and sex-matched participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) population as a comparison.
Source: China Circulation Magazine
References:
[1]Sex-Specific Risk Factors Associated With First Acute Myocardial Infarction in Young Adults. JAMA Netw Open. 2022, 5(5): e229953.
[2] Zuo Huijuan, Yang Hongxia, Nan Nan, et al. Analysis of myocardial infarction types and risk factors in young patients with initial acute myocardial infarction. Chinese Journal of Circulation, 2021, 36: 329 -334. DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1000-3614.2021.04.002.