High cholesterol levels are a bigger problem for middle-aged men than for women, researchers warn today.
A major study in Norway has shown that high cholesterol levels are more likely to trigger a first heart attack in men than women.
In the study of adults under the age of 60 three times as many men as women had heart attack – some 557 men against 157 women.
The research then showed that high cholesterol levels put men at particular extra risk. The researchers say that about half the heart attacks in men could have been caused by the additional male susceptibility to high cholesterol levels.
There was no indication that obesity or high blood pressure posed a different risk to men and women.
Writing in the journal Epidemiology, researchers say the effect was not found in people over the age of 60.
The research involved more than 40,000 people.
Researcher Erik Madssen, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said: “Our results suggest that in middle age, high cholesterol levels are much more detrimental for men than women, so that prevention efforts in this age group will have a greater potential to reduce the occurrence of a first heart attack in men."
Dyslipidemia More Detrimental for Men than Women. Epidemiology September 2013; Volume 24, Number 5; DOI: 10.1097/EDE.0b013e31829d2632 [abstract]
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