Larger differences in nonfatal events seen for whites versus blacks; risk of death not affected by race
THURSDAY, July 2, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Whites have larger sex differences in the risk of incident coronary heart disease (CHD) events than blacks, according to a study published online July 1 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Catherine Kim, M.D., M.P.H., from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and colleagues examined whether menopause type and race impact sex differences in CHD events. Data were included for 23,086 participants enrolled in the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke cohort between 2003 and 2007, without CHD at baseline.
After adjustment for multiple confounding variables, the researchers found that the risk of nonfatal events was reduced for white women in natural menopause (hazard ratio [HR], 0.45; 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.31 to 0.66) and surgical menopause (HR, 0.65; 95 percent CI, 0.42 to 0.99), compared with white men. The risk of nonfatal events was marginally reduced for black women in natural menopause (HR, 0.69; 95 percent CI, 0.47 to 1.03) but not in surgical menopause (HR, 0.81; 95 percent CI, 0.51 to 1.29), compared with black men. Compared with men, women had a lower risk of acute CHD death, irrespective of menopause type or race.
“In both blacks and whites, women had a lower risk of total CHD events than men, regardless of menopause category,” the authors write. “Patterns varied by race, with no significant sex differences observed in nonfatal CHD risk among blacks.”
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