We know that, until very recently, cardiac research for the past three decades has been done either exclusively on men, or with women represented in statistically insignificant numbers. Medical researchers have largely taken a ‘bikini approach’ to women’s health care – in which women’s health research focuses on breasts and the reproductive system. In a recent WomenHeart interview, Mayo Clinic cardiologist Dr. Sharonne Hayes, Director of the Mayo Women’s Heart Clinic in Rochester, MN, explains:
“In the 1960s, erroneous assertions that heart disease was a man’s disease were widely spread to the medical community and to the public. This led to research almost exclusively focused on cardiovascular disease in men. Many clinical trials in the 70s and 80s excluded women or simply didn’t make an effort to enroll women in sufficient numbers to draw sex-based conclusions.” (more…)
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