Dr. Betty Murray explains why menopause is a cardiovascular event. Women face higher mortality after heart procedures like stents and bypass surgery, partly because sleep disruption and inflammation spike during menopause. She argues for more aggressive screening before problems start.
Women need to understand that menopause is a cardiovascular event and the risk factors that go along with not treating it, right? The sleep issues, the increased cortisol, the inflammation.
Sure.
All of those things are going to increase our risk for that and that we do present differently. And we have to be— I think because of that, we have to be much more aggressive about upfront screening before there's a problem because we're more likely to even die in the hospital, in the ER from the event than a man.
Yep, absolutely. You know, mortality rates are striking, and it is not favorable to women at all.
No.
And even in the hospitals, you point out, right? Or even after bypass surgery or stents, again, which means that we had 20 to 30 years to find the problem, take care of the problem. We didn't. The disease basically showed up analogous to cancer as stage 4, widely metastatic, advanced disease. Then we have to use mechanical approaches And women do less well and have worse outcomes with those mechanical approaches— stents and balloons and surgery— than do the guys. And they're also that much older, which is not helpful too.
