Men's Heart Attack Risk Begins Rising in Mid-30s, Study Reveals
Men's risk of developing coronary heart disease, which can lead to heart attacks, begins to increase significantly from their mid-thirties, according to a major new study. This represents a concerning seven-year gap compared to women, whose risk typically starts rising later in life.
Groundbreaking Research Findings
The thirty-year study, conducted by Northwestern Medicine in the United States, followed more than 5,100 Black and white healthy adults who were initially aged 18 to 30 when the research began in the mid-1980s. Participants were tracked through to 2020, providing unprecedented longitudinal data about cardiovascular health across different demographic groups.
Researchers discovered that men reached a 5 per cent incidence of cardiovascular disease approximately seven years earlier than women, with men typically reaching this threshold around age 50 compared to women at age 57. The difference was particularly pronounced for coronary heart disease specifically, where men reached a 2 per cent incidence more than a decade earlier than their female counterparts.
The Persistent Gender Gap in Heart Health
While many traditional cardiovascular risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes have become more similar between men and women over recent decades, the gap in coronary heart disease incidence has remained stubbornly persistent. This suggests that biological or social factors beyond conventional risk metrics may be contributing to the disparity.
"That timing may seem early, but heart disease develops over decades, with early markers detectable in young adulthood," explained study senior author Dr Alexa Freedman, assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
"Screening at an earlier age can help identify risk factors sooner, enabling preventive strategies that reduce long-term risk," she added, emphasising the importance of early intervention.
Implications for Healthcare Screening
Current heart disease screening and prevention efforts typically focus on adults over 40, exemplified by the NHS's free health check offered to those aged 40 to 74. However, these new findings suggest this approach may be missing a crucial window for intervention in men.
The research team examined whether differences in blood pressure, cholesterol levels, blood sugar, smoking habits, diet, physical activity and body weight could explain the earlier onset of heart disease in men. While hypertension explained part of the gap, overall cardiovascular health metrics did not fully account for the difference.
"Our findings suggest that encouraging preventive care visits among young men could be an important opportunity to improve heart health and lower cardiovascular disease risk," Dr Freedman noted, highlighting the potential benefits of earlier engagement with healthcare services.
Global Significance of Coronary Heart Disease
Coronary heart disease remains the most commonly diagnosed type of heart disease worldwide and represents the single biggest killer of both men and women globally, according to the British Heart Foundation. It is also the most common cause of heart attacks, making early detection and prevention critically important for public health systems.
The study revealed that men and women had similar cardiovascular risk profiles through their early thirties, but from age 35 onwards, men's risk began to rise more rapidly and remained higher throughout midlife. Rates of stroke were similar between genders, while differences in heart failure typically emerged later in life.
These findings underscore the need for healthcare providers to reconsider current screening guidelines and potentially implement earlier cardiovascular risk assessments for men, particularly those with additional risk factors or family histories of heart disease.
