Women Heart Attack Survivors More Likely to Have Longer Hospital Stays

Young women who suffer from heart attack have less positive outcomes than men, new study from Yale University finds.

The study was conducted by Aakriti Gupta, a resident at the Yale School of Medicine. It shows that although hospitalization rates were higher for men, women had longer hospital stays and were more likely to die during treatment.

                                                      
The study was based on data from 230,000 hospitalizations of people suffering from acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Participants were between 30 and 54 years of age and were treated for AMI between 2001 and 2010.

"It is concerning that hospitalization rates for heart attack in the young have not shown any reduction, suggesting that lack of awareness and poorer control of cardiovascular risk factors-including diabetes, high blood pressure, and smoking may be responsible," said Gupta in a news release.

The study is part of a larger research project called Variation in Recovery: Role of Gender on Outcomes in Young AMI Patients (VIRGO).

Researchers also found that hospitalization rate for AMI was constant between 2001 and 2010 for both genders. In older patients, hospitalization rate decreased by 20 percent.

The current study shows that disease risks vary between genders.

Dr. Harlan Krumholz, director of the Yale-New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation, one of the study authors said that he and his team are working to identify gender-specific factors associated with heart attack in young women.

The study is published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

A heart attack occurs when the heart doesn't get enough oxygen. The condition is the leading cause of death in both men and women in the U.S.