When most people think about heart attacks, they imagine older adults. But a new study from Yale University shows that younger adults—especially those under 55—can also have heart attacks.
Even more important, the reasons why young men and women have heart attacks are not always the same.
The study, led by researcher Yuan Lu and published in JAMA Network Open, looked at over 2,200 people who had experienced a heart attack and compared them to the same number of people who had not.
The goal was to find out which health problems or life situations increased the risk of heart attacks in younger adults, and whether the risks were different between men and women.
The results were surprising. Some health problems were much more dangerous for women than for men. For women under 55, the biggest risk was diabetes. Women with diabetes had a much higher chance of having a heart attack than men with the same condition.
Other major risks for women included smoking, high blood pressure, and depression. Having a family history of heart disease, high cholesterol, and low income were also important risk factors.
One important finding was that poverty made heart attacks more likely in women. Living with financial stress and not having easy access to healthcare can have a big effect on heart health. Depression also played a stronger role in heart attacks for women than for men, showing that mental health is an important part of heart health—especially for women.
For men, smoking and having a family history of heart disease were the top risk factors. High blood pressure and high cholesterol also increased risk, but they were not as strongly linked to heart attacks in men as they were in women. In this study, mental health and income didn’t seem to have as much impact on men’s heart attack risk.
Altogether, seven main factors explained most of the risk: diabetes, smoking, depression, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, low income, and family history. These factors made up 84% of heart attack risk in young women and 85% in young men. But the way these risks affected each gender was clearly different.
These results show that heart attack prevention needs to be more personal. What works for men may not work as well for women. Young women especially need to know that they can be at risk—even if they feel healthy.
Health education campaigns, like the American Heart Association’s “Go Red for Women,” can help raise awareness. These programs teach women about their unique risks and encourage early action. Doctors also have a big role to play. By recognizing how risk factors affect women differently, they can provide better care and advice.
This study sends a powerful message: gender matters when it comes to heart health. By understanding how men and women face different risks, we can take better steps to protect younger adults and save more lives.
If you care about heart health, please read studies that Changing blood pressure readings is a hidden sign of heart disease and common type 2 diabetes drugs may raise heart risk.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about root cause of heart rhythm disorders and Warning signal from the kidneys can predict future heart failure risk.
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