Men Develop Heart Disease Earlier Than Women: Study

From the Editor’s Desk

February 8, 2026

Men develop cardiovascular disease earlier than women, a new study shows. By age 50, men experience significantly more coronary heart disease events, heart failure and total cardiovascular events than women of the same age.

The study, which followed 5,112 individuals for over three decades, beginning in early adulthood, found that men developed cardiovascular disease on average seven years earlier than women, according to the new longitudinal analysis of the CARDIA study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Over the 34 years that researchers tracked participants, 387 people developed heart-related problems, including 227 men and 160 women. By age 50, the cumulative incidence of cardiovascular disease was 4.7 percent for men and 2.9 percent for women. The gap in coronary heart disease incidence was even larger, with 2.5 percent of men affected by age 50 compared to 0.9 percent of women.

The findings showed that men reached a 5 percent overall rate of cardiovascular disease about seven years earlier than women. For coronary heart disease (CHD), men reached a 2 percent rate roughly 10 years before women.

Cardiovascular disease is a broad medical term that refers to all conditions affecting the heart and blood vessels. It includes problems such as heart attacks, stroke, heart failure and diseases of the arteries that carry blood through the body. Coronary heart disease is one specific type within this larger group. It develops when the arteries that supply blood to the heart muscle become narrowed or blocked, usually because of fatty deposits called plaque. This reduced blood flow can lead to chest pain or a heart attack.

In contrast, stroke had affected 1.2 percent of both men and women by age 50, with no meaningful difference in timing or frequency.

For heart failure, there was no major difference between men and women at age 50. Both had cumulative incidence rates near 1 percent. However, by age 65, men had a rate of 3 percent while women had 1.7 percent.

Differences in risk appeared earlier for coronary heart disease, with men’s and women’s 10-year rates starting to separate at age 34. For overall cardiovascular disease, this gap began at age 35. Among those who had no disease by age 50, men faced a 6 percent risk over the next 10 years, compared to 3.3 percent for women.

Starting at age 35, men had nearly twice the 10-year risk of developing cardiovascular disease compared to women. At that age, the risk ratio was 1.95 and rose to 2.08 by age 55. These differences stayed even after accounting for major health factors linked to heart disease.

When researchers adjusted for systolic blood pressure, the gap between men and women narrowed the most, shrinking by 15 percent. Other measures like general heart health scores made only a small difference.

Analyses that took into account earlier cases of coronary heart disease confirmed that men’s higher overall rates of cardiovascular problems were mainly due to their earlier onset of coronary artery disease. This pattern held true across different racial and educational backgrounds.

Differences in stroke and heart failure risk remained small or emerged only in later life, suggesting the primary sex difference was in early-onset coronary heart disease. Stroke incidence by age 50 was nearly identical across sexes and did not vary meaningfully in the dataset.

The study identified age 35 as a critical point when sex-based differences in cardiovascular disease risk begin to appear. This coincides with a period of marked difference in health care usage, with men less likely to receive preventive care.

At ages 18 to 44, women were over four times more likely than men to have preventive health visits, due in part to gynaecologic and obstetric services. The study suggested this imbalance may contribute to missed opportunities for early cardiovascular screening among men.

Although male lipid profiles and female hormonal protection are often cited as reasons for the 10-year age gap in coronary heart disease onset, the analysis found that sex differences remained even after accounting for lipid levels.

The authors stated that differences in traditional risk factors did not fully explain the earlier onset of cardiovascular events in men, calling for larger investigation into biological and social influences.

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