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February 4, 2006
Women's Heart Disease May Be Harder To Detect
Doctors may be less likely to spot heart disease in women because of the way women's bodies lay down cholesterol in the arteries.
In an ongoing study called WISE, the Women's Ischemia Syndrome Evaluation, researchers have found that about two-thirds of women with chest pain pass an angiogram. But about half of them turn out to have a condition named "coronary microvascular syndrome," where plaque evenly coats very small arteries instead of forming more obvious obstructions in larger ones.
The narrowed small arteries mean less oxygen flow to the heart, explaining the women's chest pain.
But this microvascular syndrome also seems to signal a dysfunction of the lining of the artery's inner wall, making the blood vessels not dilate the way they're supposed to in response to stress, said Dr. C. Noel Bairey Merz of Cedars-Sinai Medical in Los Angeles, who oversees the WISE study.
Posted by linda at February 4, 2006 1:07 PM
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