It’s a startling discovery.
A new study suggests that older women in Canada are less successful than older men at controlling high blood pressure.
Dr. Norm Campbell says it’s suprising because typically, women are better at taking care of their health than men.
Campbell is an internal medicine professor at the University of Calgary.
He says … despite the fact that an equal percentage took the prescribed medications, about 30 per cent of women didn’t have their hypertension under control, compared to 17 per cent of men.
Campbell and his co-authors couldn’t find an explanation for the difference ruling out factors like socioeconomic standing, overall health status, type of medication used and differences in body mass index.
He says family doctors and women with high blood pressure should be aware of this fact and move quickly when blood pressure control appears to be slipping.
The study is published in the October issue of Statistics Canada’s journal Health Reports.
