The heart - particularly the left ventricle - of men and women does not age the same way, according to a new study. This difference could indicate a need to employ varying approaches to treat heart disease in males and females, HealthDay reports.
The researchers of the study investigated the mass of the left ventricles of 2,935 people by comparing their cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) from 10 years ago with a recent cardiac MRI. The participants were part of a larger study called Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA). None of the participants had any cardiovascular disease at the beginning of the study.
"We had the opportunity to re-examine the same people after 10 years so that we could see what happened to their hearts after a decade," study author Dr. John Eng from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore said in a press release. "This is a more reliable way to assess left ventricular changes over time."
The left ventricle is the main pumping chamber of the heart. For many years, researchers have studied its mass, using it as a predictor for cardiovascular diseases. For example, in people with high blood pressure, the walls of the left ventricle thicken in order to pump blood harder.
When the researchers compared the baseline cardiac MRI of the participants with that taken 10 years later, they observed that the left ventricles decreased in volume for both men and women. However, the left ventricular mass of the men increased while that of women slightly decreased.
"The shape of the heart changes over time in both men and women, but the patterns of change are different," Eng said. "Men's hearts tend to get heavier and the amount of blood they hold is less, while women's hearts don't get heavier."
These differences suggest that the treatment approach for men and women with cardiovascular disease should not be the same.
"We've been talking a lot lately about personalized medicine, and here's an example where perhaps men and women might have to be treated differently," Eng said.
The study was published Oct. 20 in the journal Radiology.
