Women docs do better at heart care: study

By Kim Dixon

CHICAGO (Reuters) - To better tame your blood pressure and cholesterol, you may want to consult a woman doctor, according to a study presented on Sunday.

Female physicians do a better job of keeping those risk factors for heart disease in check than do their male counterparts, the study, presented at the American College of Cardiology scientific meeting, found.

Female physicians are better than men in treating fellow women with high-blood pressure and cholesterol, and they also are better at helping men control cholesterol, the Swedish study found.

Researchers reviewed records of about 6,600 patients treated by primary-care doctors for high-blood pressure between 2002 and 2005. About 71 percent of doctors were men, while about 29 percent were women.

"We were discussing the way men and women were treated differently and found out that female physicians more often reach their treatment goals," said Journath Gunilla, a researcher with the Center for Family and Community Medicine at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden.

One reason for the better cholesterol-control may be that the women doctors studied were more likely to prescribe lipid-lowering statins.

As for other explanatory factors for the results, Gunilla hypothesized that, "it could be communication," notably, potentially better people skills of women doctors.

Researchers received funding from the drugmaker Merck & Co., which sells drugs for cholesterol and high-blood pressure, for the study.