Why perimenopause may be the best time to act on heart disease risk

According to the World Heart Federation , cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women around the globe, accounting for about 30% of all deaths. While a woman can develop heart disease at any age, past studies show that a woman’s risk for cardiovascular issues increases after menopause , which is generally around the age of 52 .

“Heart disease is still the leading killer of women, and yet for decades, the research, the clinical trials, the risk calculators were built almost entirely on men,” Garima Arora , MD, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told Medical News Today . “We’ve definitely made progress, but we’re still playing catch-up.

Women’s cardiovascular risk doesn’t follow the same trajectory as men’s. It’s tied up with reproductive hormones , with pregnancy history, with life stages that men simply don’t go through,” Arora added.