A Medical Practitioner, Dr. Hannah-Lisa Tetteh, has stated that women are more prone to various heart diseases as compared to men due to the female anatomy.

She explained that peculiar conditions associated with women such as menopause and pregnancy play some roles in heart conditions.

“During menopause, the estrogen level in women reduces making them vulnerable to heart diseases. These are specific things not seen in men, because they don’t experience menopause” she stated.

According to her, symptoms of heart diseases are generally the same among both genders, however, there are certain heart diseases that are common in women.

“…generally there are certain heart conditions that are specific or common in women and those ones have to do with the small blood vessels that supply the heart with blood,” she added.

Speaking with Emefa Adeti and Roselyn Felli on Prime Morning on Wednesday 16^th February, 2022, Dr. Tetteh said, pregnancy is a basic cause of gestational diabetes.

This condition increases blood sugar levels and since high blood sugar levels lead to high blood pressure, it causes heart diseases if it persists.

“…most women develop a lot of diseases during pregnancy such as gestational diabetes. In such situations the woman either returns to normalcy or not depending on the treatment given, in case it persists, the woman stands the chance of getting a heart disease,” she added.

Race 4 Heart is an annual health walk climaxed with aerobics organised by Joy Prime TV for patrons to exercise, burn calories and stay healthy during valentine season.

As part of educating people on the importance of keeping the heart healthy before the programme on Saturday 19^th February, 2022, the health practitioner advised that people should adopt various healthy lifestyles such as: exercising regularly, eating well to reduce cholesterol, checking body weight to avoid obesity among others for the general well-being of the heart.

She further stated that women need to be concerned with their heart conditions because statistics shows that heart diseases cause one out four deaths among women globally.