Heart and brain together

Women suffer heart attacks more frequently than you might think. Cardiologist Catherine Gebhard is looking into the interplay of heart and brain in cardiovascular disease – so that women can better protect the health of these organs.

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Angela Zumthor* already knows she’s at particular risk. Since the 35-year-old single mum was diagnosed with hypertension a year ago she’s been measuring her blood pressure regularly, taking medication to lower the readings, and doing relaxation exercises.

And a good thing too: women with high blood pressure run a much greater risk of heart attack than men. Despite this, it’s much less common for women to be given drugs to lower their blood pressure. The mortality rate from heart attack is now higher for women than for men. This much is known from studies, but many other questions remain unanswered. The reason why: so far studies on cardiovascular disease have revolved around men in the second half of life. Women in the same age group are involved less frequently, and younger women not at all.

Growing number of heart attacks

“The way we often don’t make a distinction between men and women in medicine is grotesque,” says Catherine Gebhard, attending physician at the University Hospital Zurich (USZ) Department of Nuclear Medicine. She specializes in cardiovascular gender medicine. Her research is designed to change what is an unsatisfactory data situation. Among other things she’s looking into why the number of heart attacks among pre-menopausal women is on the rise. At the same time there are new studies reporting an increase in heart attacks among pregnant women.

Catherine Gebhard has already discovered an initial clue as to the cause: “A woman’s heart reacts more sensitively to stress than a man’s.” In women with cardiac circulatory disorder, for example, the amygdala – the fear center of their brain – is highly active. This isn’t the case for men. Catherine Gebhard’s novel approach of examining the interplay of heart and brain raises new questions: Do stress and fearful states damage the female heart more than the male? Or is it the other way around, with heart disease causing stress? Or both?

State-of-the-art imaging

In her search for answers, Catherine Gebhard is examining 30 women and 30 men with a new type of hybrid scanner combining positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Her research project, called “Heart and Fear,” is possible thanks to a donation from the Iten Kohaut Stiftung to the USZ Foundation. It’s designed to help understand the interplay between heart and brain more fully, so that women like Angela Zumthor can look after their health properly.

*anonymized/symbolic image

100% financed

Iten-Kohaut Foundation