We first look at what is a heart attack? In fact, every living cell, including our heart, needs oxygen and nutrients, and blood is given to parts of the body to supply these things. Heart tissues and cells also need a blood supply, and there are coronary arteries to supply blood to the heart. When these coronary arteries become obstructed, the blood supply to the heart tissues is reduced, which does not meet their need for oxygen and nutrients, and the heart tissues begin to weaken, resulting in heart failure. Decreases and a heart attack (myocardial infarction) occurs.
The question is, why are the coronary arteries blocked? There are various reasons for this, but there are basically two reasons. One reason may be that something gets stuck in the coronary artery, such as cholesterol. The second reason may be that nothing is stuck, but the coronary artery has shrunk (shrunk) by itself. Unnecessary vasoconstriction occurs due to which the veins constrict, these chemicals contain chemicals that come into the body from smoking and excessive consumption of alcohol. So far we've seen why heart attacks happen.
Now let's talk about why women have a lower chance of having a heart attack.
In fact, the female sex hormone estrogen plays a role in this. Estrogen is formed in a woman's ovaries, when a woman's menstrual cycle begins (called menarche, which begins between the ages of 12 and 15). The question is how does estrogen reduce heart attack? Above we talked about how high cholesterol causes blockage in the coronary arteries. Cholesterol is a form of lipid (fat), our liver makes cholesterol from other parts of our diet such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins and the rest of the cholesterol we get directly from our diet. Cholesterol is essential for the body, but too much of it is harmful. Cholesterol is fat and fat cannot travel in the blood alone, it has to bind to proteins in the blood to travel in the blood, and proteins and lipids combine to make lipoprotein.
There are two types of cholesterol
One is Low Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (LDL) and the other is High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol (HDL).
LDL cholesterol is absorbed directly from the blood into the blood vessels and other tissues of the body, and this cholesterol blocks the coronary arteries of the heart.
The second type of cholesterol, HDL, first enters the liver, where an excess of it is separated from the blood and expelled from the body or converted into something else.
So we can call HDL good cholesterol because its amount is under control while LDL is called bad cholesterol because its amount is out of control and causes blockage of veins.
The estrogen hormone produced in women plays a role in increasing good cholesterol and lowering bad cholesterol. In addition, estrogen opens and relaxes the blood vessels. In addition, this hormone increases the free radicals in the blood. It also eliminates free radicals that cause damage to blood vessels.
This estrogen hormone is not always produced in women, after menopause, that is, at the age at which menstruation stops, the production of estrogen also stops and at this stage women and men are equal for heart disease.
In addition, men generally smoke and drink more than women and do more strenuous work.
It should be noted that in all this we have assumed that the woman is healthy, it is possible that another disease may affect the heart.
