Baptist HeartWise for Women

Cardiovascular Disease is the #1 Health Issue for Women

Half of all women will develop heart disease during their lifetimes, but too many of us are unaware of the threat we face. One study showed that only 13% of women think it could happen to them. There is an urgent need for greater awareness and understanding of heart disease among women and for immediate efforts to eliminate the disparities in women's heart care.

• Heart disease is the leading cause of death for American women, killing more than a third of women over the age of 20 each year.

  • Heart disease claims more women's lives each year than the next seven causes of death combined, and nearly twice as many as all forms of cancer combined.
  • While 1 in 25 women will die of breast cancer, 1 in 3 will die of cardiovascular disease.

• More women than men die of heart disease each year. Women have assumed in the past that their gender protects them from heart disease, but this is not true. A lack of knowledge about the risk of stress and poor lifestyle habits is hurting women.

  • One study put the death risk for women at 1.7 times greater than that for men.
  • More women than men die within one year of a first recognized heart attack.
  • More female than male heart attack survivors are diagnosed with heart failure within five years of a recognized heart attack.

• Heart disease in not just an older woman's disease. It can affect women of all ages and the choices we make at every age can impact our heart health.

  • Heart disease begins in our teens and progresses over time.
  • The risk of a heart attack increases sharply after menopause.
  • The death rate due to heart disease is actually increasing among women under 55.

A Woman's Heart is Different

Research over the last 10 years is revealing an important insight: Heart disease often behaves differently in women than in men.

• Women have more risk factors than men; some are more important for women, and some are unique to women. For instance, women who had certain problems during pregnancy have higher risk for heart disease later.
• Plaque can develop in a more evenly distributed way in women's arteries, making heart blockage harder to detect, even through a test like a coronary angiogram.
• Men tend to develop blockages in the major arteries of the heart, while women are more often struck by a problem of the smaller microvessels.
• Women tend to experience less-common symptoms of heart attack, which can be brushed off as something less serious. Less likely to recognize the symptoms, women often delay seeking potentially life-saving treatment.
• Women comprise only 27% of participants in all heart-related research studies. Women are less likely than men to receive appropriate treatment after a heart attack. And women experience a higher complication rate with surgical procedures.
• As women spend time and energy managing their family’s health and other aspects of their own health, they often neglect their own potential cardiovascular risks. Silent risk factors, such as hypertension and diabetes, can needlessly go untreated for years.

Risk Factors for Women

The following factors are known to put women at greater risk for heart disease:

• Family history of early heart disease (father/brother before age 55, or mother/sister before age 65)
• Race/ethnicity (African-American, Hispanic and Native American women are all at greater risk of heart disease than Caucasian women.)
• Age 55 or older
• Smoking
• Being overweight
• Lack of regular physical activity
• Poor diet
• High blood pressure
• Abnormal cholesterol
• Diabetes
• Metabolic syndrome
• Chronic kidney disease
• Lupus or rheumatoid arthritis
• Irregular periods before age 45
• Certain complications in pregnancy (preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, pre-term infant)

Ideal cardiovascular health can be defined as a healthy lifestyle with all of the following:

• Blood pressure less than 120/80 (untreated)
• Total cholesterol less than 200 (untreated)
• Fasting blood glucose less than 100 (untreated)
• Body Mass Index less than 25
• Never smoked or quit more than one year ago
• 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week
• A diet of fruits and vegetables, whole grains and high-fiber foods; eats fish, especially oily fish, twice a week or more (pregnant women should avoid fish with high mercury levels)
• Limited saturated fat, cholesterol, alcohol, sodium, sugar and avoids trans-fatty acids

Heart Attack Symptoms in Women Should Never Be Ignored!

It can be easy to miss heart attack symptoms in women because they can be less obvious than the crushing chest pain often associated with heart attacks and easily attributed to other issues, such as indigestion, aging or simply a busy, stressful lifestyle. Women can have one or more of these symptoms:

• Chest discomfort
• Stomach pain, indigestion or nausea
• Discomfort in shoulders, arms, back, neck, jaw or teeth
• Unexplained shortness of breath
• Unexplained fatigue
• Sweating
• Lightheadedness or headache
• Palpitations
• Feeling of impending doom

Symptoms in Women May Appear Before a Heart Attack

Research by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) indicates that the majority of women experience new or different physical symptoms a month or more before having a heart attack. Surprisingly, fewer than 30% reported having chest discomfort prior to their heart attacks, and 43% reported having no chest pain during the attack.

What to Do if You are Experiencing Symptoms:

If you experience these symptoms or think you’re having a heart attack, don’t delay: Call 911 immediately for trained emergency medical help. Half the deaths from a heart attack occur in the first three or four hours after a heart attack begins. It is crucial that symptoms of a heart attack be treated as a medical emergency.