Lifestyle habits are closely related to cardiovascular mortality in menopausal women. Sitting most of the day triples the risk of cardiovascular death in women over 50 years of age, with respect to having an activity such as walking, carrying some weight and/or performing physical exertion tasks, according to a study published in the “Revista Española de Cardiology”.
Tobacco is the second factor that most increases the risk of cardiovascular death in this population group: women smokers have an 81.6% higher risk of dying from this cause than those who have never smoked. On the other hand, consuming vegetables less than once a week increases the risk of cardiovascular death by 75.8% compared to consuming them more than three times a week.
“The objective of the study was to discover the lifestyle habits and chronic diseases associated with increased cardiovascular risk in menopausal women, as well as to build a scale to quantify the risk of mortality from this cause,” explains José Antonio Quesada, author of the study and director of Cardiovascular Research Group from the Miguel Hernández University of Elche.
The analysis included 5,953 women, representative of all of Spain, aged between 50 and 103 years, of whom 42% had high blood pressure, 34% hypercholesterolemia, and 14% diabetes.
The researchers tracked mortality from 2011 to 2017; that is, a total of six years. In that period of time, 4% of the women died of cardiovascular causes.
Regarding the sociodemographic variables studied, age is the only variable that presents differences in the risk of death. “For each year that a woman is fulfilling, the risk of cardiovascular mortality increases by 14%”, adds the researcher.
On the other hand, the results of the study have allowed the creation of a specific risk scale that is easy to use and directly applicable to postmenopausal women with a high predictive capacity for the risk of death. The sum of the points for each of the predictive factors reflects the probability of cardiovascular mortality at six years. So, with six points or more on that risk scale, the chances of cardiovascular death exceed 5%, rising very sharply from seven points.