Most Women are Unaware of Their Heart Attack Symptoms and Risks for Cardiovascular Disease

Forget everything you've heard about cardiovascular disease and heart attacks being just a MAN's problem. Heart disease is the number one killer of WOMEN in the United States. It is also a leading cause of disability among women.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), 95 percent of the women studied said they knew their symptoms were new or different a month or more before their heart attacks.

Pay Attention to Heart Attack Symptoms
 
Heart attack symptoms most commonly reported by women in the study were unusual fatigue, sleep disturbance, and shortness of breath.
 
Dr. Elizabeth Ross, a leading cardiologist and author of Healing the Female Heart, wrote that when she was in medical school, there was little information on women and heart attacks. "In the first two weeks after a heart attack, women are twice as likely to die as men," she said. "I think there is a tendency not to refer women for treatment as early...there is an assumption in the medical community that women don't get heart attacks and that women should take care of the men in their lives."



Heart to Heart subject Mary Maguire of Wheeling, WV

Mary Maguire of Wheeling, WV, was too busy caring for her husband and two children and not paying enough attention to her own heart attack symptoms.  She was 46 years old. After spending a night awake and in pain, she got up and went to her classes at a nearby school. In Heart to Heart by C. Bruce Johnson, she says, "...and then I missed my ride home, so I walked, about three and a half or four miles. I was fine, but then that night, again, when I finally got to bed, all the pain was back, but this time I couldn't control it at all."
 
Doctors say women, like men, should be aware of heart attack symptoms such as chest pains, shortness of breath and  indigestion, but they should also be aware of heightened anxiety, stress, unfamiliar weakness, unusual fatigue, cold sweat, and dizziness.

Be Aware of Heart Attack Risk Factors
 
According to the American Heart Association:

• Nearly 37 percent of all female deaths in American occur from cardiovascular disease. That's a higher percentage than in men.
• In 2005, cardiovascular disease claimed the lives of 454,613 females; all forms of cancer combined killed 268,890.
• In 2005, coronary heart disease claimed the lives of 213,572 females compared with 41,116 lives lost from breast cancer and 67,894 from lung cancer.
• At age 40 and older, 23 percent of women compared with 18 percent of men will die within one year after a heart attack.
• Stroke is a leading cause of serious, long-term disability; an estimated 15 percent to 30 percent of stroke survivors are permanently disabled.