Study: Hispanic Women’s Hearts at Risk

Hispanic women have the same heart disease risk as white women who are ten years older, a new U.S. study says.

It was previously thought that Hispanic women suffer from less heart disease than other groups, despite the fact that they have greater risk factors and tend to be more socio-economically deprived, according to an article by University of Rochester researchers unveiled Friday at the American Heart Association’s Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.

But in clinical practice, the opposite is true, the authors write. The study of nearly 200 women found that while the women scored similarly in the risk factors of hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol and waist circumference, Hispanic women’s prehypertension rate was 32 percent, significantly higher than Caucasian women’s rate of 19 percent.

If you look at prevalence by age, there is a clear trend for Hispanics towards increased prevalence at a younger age, with earlier onset in Hispanic women for these cardiac risk factors, said lead study author John Teeters, a cardiology fellow at the University of Rochester.