(Gulfnews) - Orlando, Florida: More US women are developing a type of artery disease that raises the risk of death from heart disease and stroke, researchers said yesterday.
Researchers used US government health surveys to track rates of peripheral artery disease, known as PAD, in people aged 40 and up with no outward symptoms of cardiovascular illness. PAD is a circulatory condition in which narrowed arteries cut blood flow to the limbs.
Rates among women rose from 4.1 per cent in a nationally representative 1999-2000 survey to 6.3 per cent in a 2003-2004 survey. Among men, the rates fell from 3.3 per cent to 2.8 per cent during the same period, the researchers said.
"In those women with PAD, the increasing prevalence was associated with an increase in the prevalence of obesity," said Dr Andrew Sumner, medical director of the Heart Station and Cardiac Prevention at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
"It's a large number of people who are at risk and don't know it," Sumner added.