By Washington Regional Medical Center
Many women under the age of 55 aren’t seeking timely treatment for heart attack because they expect the warning signs and their reaction to follow a Hollywood script — tightening in the chest, shortness of breath, clutching the chest while dropping to one knee. The truth is that not all heart attacks conform to the stereotype of a man clutching his chest in pain. And nearly half the time, it is not a man whose heart is under assault — it’s a woman. Every year hundreds of thousands of women die as the result of a heart attack or other cardiovascular disease. Coronary heart disease, which causes heart attack, is the leading cause of death for American women over all forms of cancer, including breast cancer.
According to the American Heart Association, a recent study revealed that women lack the understanding of the dangers and symptoms of heart disease. “Only 13 percent of women consider heart disease their greatest health threat,” stated Amy Jetton, director of cardiovascular services at Washington Regional Medical Center. “In fact, heart disease kills six times more women than breast cancer each year. Nevertheless, our mental images still portray it as a man’s illness. Here at the Walker Family Heart & Vascular Institute at Washington Regional, we feel as if it is time for women to take control of their health by screening for heart disease and educating themselves on the signs and symptoms,” continued Jetton.
Researchers have found that women actually experience heart attacks differently than men. Some women have chest tightness as a symptom and some don’t ever have chest pain. Some women complain of pressure in the lower chest along with fatigue and easily mistake this as a stomach ailment. Most women who experience these symptoms fail to connect theme with a heart condition, thus are slower to seek medical attention and therefore at greater risk of dying from a heart attack than men.

Even though chest pain is the most common symptom, studies show that a heart attack for a woman plays out quite differently.
Major symptoms a woman experiences before a heart attack:
• Fatigue
• Sleep disturbance
• Shortness of breath
• Anxiety and a sense that something is terribly wrong
• Indigestion
• Brief episodes of pain or discomfort between the shoulder blades weeks before (especially upon exertion)
Major symptoms a woman experiences during the heart attack:
• Shortness of breath
• Weakness and sudden fatigue
• Cold sweats with nausea
• Dizziness
• Chest pain along with neck and jaw pain (sometimes the chest pain is not present)
• Throbbing in one or both arms
• Back pain that persists

There are several factors that increase the risk of heart disease in women. The more risk factors a woman has, the greater her risk of having a heart attack. Some of the risk factors you can’t control, such as increasing age, family health history, race and gender. But a woman can modify, treat or control most risk factors to lower her risk.
The following tips can
help lower your risk of heart attack:
• Maintain a regular schedule of aerobic exercise
• Eat heart-healthy meals and if you are overweight, work with your physician on a diet plan that best fits your needs
• Get your blood pressure, cholesterol levels and sugar levels checked regularly. If your numbers are high, work with your physician to control your numbers
• Cut back on caffeine and drink plenty of water
• If you smoke, quit!
• Drink alcohol in moderation. Excessive intake increase heart attack risk
If the heart of a woman is her greatest strength, it can also contain her greatest vulnerability. Almost every minute, another woman dies of cardiovascular disease, according to the American Heart Association. Disease of the heart muscle and blood vessel system is the No. 1 killer of women, accounting for one in every
2.6 deaths.
“The truth is that 40,000 American women die of breast cancer each year but 400,000 die of heart disease and stroke,” said Dr. Mary Ann Bauman, medical director for women’s health and community relations for INTEGRIS Health Inc. and a spokesperson for the Go Red For Women campaign. “It’s good that they get their mammograms, of course, but women still have a tendency to ignore or discount symptoms of heart disease.”
Part of the reason women’s heart disease symptoms sometimes go ignored is because they differ from men’s, said Dr. Philip Riley, cardiologist at Northwest Arkansas Heart and Vascular Center in Bentonville. Females were underrepresented in early heart studies so their symptoms are often considered atypical.
“I think that from our perspective, from a physician’s perspective, we haven’t had an adequate number of females in our trials to identify the problem,” he said. “Breast cancer is by far a female issue and so that’s where female health issues get a lot of attention.”
— Antoinette Grajeda