Health & Medicine
The unhealthy habits killing Australian women
What’s killing women?
Sex disparity and the shifting landscape of age-related disease
Published 19 May 2017
Episode 394
Population health researcher Professor Cassandra Szoeke outlines what ails women as they grow older, how men differ from women in age-related diseases, and how public awareness and personal lifestyle change have been shown to have a positive impact on women’s quality of life in their later years.
“We’re finding that diseases are quite different in men and women,” says Professor Szoeke. “So, heart disease was thought to be a disease of men. Many men were dying of heart disease in the 50s, [but] in about the late 80s more women than men were dying of heart disease and that is the case even today. More women than men suffer heart disease.
“The chances of dying from breast cancer in your lifetime are half your chances of dying from dementia. So women don’t realise actually what the real diseases that will impact them in their ageing are.”
Episode recorded: 20 April 2017
Up Close producer: Kelvin Param Audio engineer: Gavin Nebauer Banner image: Daria Shevtsova/Unsplash
Professor Cassandra Szoeke’s new book Secrets of Women’s Healthy Ageing is now available to buy online through Melbourne University Publishing.
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