Dr. Lori Mosca answers the question: 'How Does A Woman's Risk Change With Age?'
Question: How does a woman's risk for heart disease change with age -- from very young to very old?
Answer: There's a common myth that heart disease tends to suddenly increase after the menopause in women. As it turns out, a woman's risk for heart disease steadily increases throughout her life. It's just because we use '50 years old' or 'the menopause' as a cut point, when we talk about the rates of heart disease being higher after that time period. But in reality, there's a steady increase with age throughout a woman's lifetime; there doesn't appear to be a magical threshold at which time the risk for heart disease increases substantially in women.
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