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CNN's Rhonda Rowland reports on the relationship between congestive heart failure and gender
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April 12, 1999
Web posted at: 11:15 PM EDT (1315 GMT)

CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina (CNN) -- Women with congestive heart failure can live twice as long as men with the same disease, according to a study released Monday.

Researchers said the cause is most likely a biological difference between the sexes: Women's heart muscles respond better to some types of heart disease, such as high blood pressure.

The study, reported in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, focused on patients with advanced heart failure.

"What we think may be going on is there are biological differences between men and women that effect the way they respond to the heart failure state," said lead researcher Dr. Kirkwood F. Adams Jr., a professor of medicine and radiology at the University of North Carolina.

The finding challenges earlier work suggesting women's survival advantages might come from differences in the types of treatment women and men receive.

An estimated 4.6 million Americans have congestive heart failure, a condition in which the heart cannot pump enough blood to meet the body's demands.

Number of U.S. cases still rising rapidly

It remains the only heart disease that continues to rise dramatically in the population. Researchers expect the number of heart failure patients with the disease to double or triple in the next decade.

When diagnosed with the condition in 1990, Dorothy Sites was told by doctors she could expect to live another five years.

"It sounds kind of like doom," she said. "You need your heart, and if it's failing, you think of death."

Almost a decade later, Sites, 53, remains active, which may be due in large part to her gender.

"I think the message is that we need to be aware that there are differences between men and women in their response to heart disease as well as differences in the types of heart disease they develop," said Dr. Wendy Brook of Emory University in Atlanta.

Researchers compared survival data on 331 men and 99 women and grouped them by age, race, weight, duration of heart failure and blood pressure.

Men with ischemic heart disease -- the kind caused by clogged vessels and resulting in a lack of blood supply to the heart -- were about 1.5 times more likely to die in the first 18 months after being diagnosed.

Men with nonischemic heart disease -- caused by high blood pressure or other factors that can weaken the heart muscle -- were three times more likely than women to die during that period.

Overall, men whose congestive heart failure was caused by high blood pressure or other factors were twice as likely to die as their female counterparts.

The researchers cautioned that larger studies are needed.

Medical Correspondent Rhonda Rowland and The Associated Press contributed to this report.