Women less likely to survive heart attack, study finds
The finding is reported in a five-year Health Research Board study of the health of the nation.
TCD research fellow Dr Sharon O’Donnell discovered that women often have symptoms such as tiredness or nausea, unlike men’s symptoms of sudden, acute chest and arm pain.
Dr O’Donnell believes there is a need for a major campaign to educate women, their families, GPs and accident and emergency staff about the problem.
The report also revealed that smokers are nearly three times more likely to say they suffer from poor health than non-smokers.
It also confirms the view that social, economic and material disadvantage is damaging people’s health.
Smokers are generally economically less well-off than non-smokers, according to the study being published today.
If you are well-off, you are more likely to be in good health. Conversely, people on medical cards rate their health as “poor”.
It is known that smoking can cause brain damage to an unborn foetus.
Pharmacologist Dr Veronica Campbell also warned that women, especially teenage girls, need to avoid cannabis if they might be pregnant. Dr Campbell wants to study the impact of cannabis on adolescents as researchers have discovered that cannabis kills nerve cells in young brains.
Meanwhile, a Tallaght Hospital medical team detected 97% of colon cancers during the first independent clinical trial of a new German kit.
The kit picked up 76% of pre-cancerous growths previously detected by conventional colonoscopy. The test was carried out on only 197 samples, the result suggesting the kit offered “great promise” for early-detected colon cancers.
