• Posted February 24, 2026

Women's Heart Health at Greater Risk from Lower Levels of Artery Plaque, Study Shows

Women tend to have less artery-clogging plaque than men, but that doesn’t appear to protect their heart health, a new study says.

Fewer women have plaques clogging the arteries feeding the heart, and those with plaques have half as much as men, researchers reported Feb. 23 in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging.

Despite that, women had about the same risk of premature death, researchers found. They also had even odds of suffering a heart attack or being hospitalized for chest pain.

It appears that a woman’s heart health is more heavily affected by artery plaque, the study concluded.

“Because women have smaller coronary arteries, a small amount of plaque can have a bigger impact,” senior researcher Dr. Borek Foldnya, an assistant professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said in a news release.

These results indicate that sex-specific guidelines might be needed when it comes to protecting heart health among women, researchers said.

“Moderate increases in plaque burden appear to have disproportionate risk in women, suggesting that standard definitions of high risk may underestimate risk in women,” Foldnya said.

Heart disease and clogged arteries tend to be associated with men, but American Heart Association statistics show that women account for 47% of U.S. deaths from heart disease, researchers said in background notes.

For the new study, researchers analyzed clinical trial data from nearly 4,300 people with chest pain treated at 193 hospitals in the U.S. and Canada. About half were women.

Results showed that 55% of women has clogged arteries, compared to 75% of men.

They also tended to have half as much plaque in their arteries — a median of 78 cubic millimeters versus 156 cubic millimeters among men. (Median means half had more, half less.)

Nevertheless, they were as likely as men to die, have a heart attack, or land in the hospital with chest pain (2.3% of women versus 3.4% of men), researchers found.

It turned out that women face increased heart risk at lower levels of plaque compared to men, researchers said.

Women’s heart risk began to rise at 20% plaque burden in their arteries, while men’s risk started at 28%.

From there, risk rose more sharply for women than men as plaque levels increased.

“These findings are another important example of why it is imperative to recognize that cardiovascular disease can impact men and women so differently,” Dr. Stacey Rosen, volunteer president of the American Heart Association, said in a news release.

“There is an overdue recognition of fundamental, biological differences in the way health conditions manifest in women versus men, and these differences can influence everything from risk factors to symptoms to treatment response,” added Rosen, executive director of the Katz Institute for Women’s Health and senior vice president of women’s health at Northwell Health in New York City. 

Rosen was not involved in the study.

More information

The American Heart Association has more on clogged arteries.

SOURCE: American Heart Association, news release, Feb. 23, 2026