Scientists from the American Heart Association suggest a woman’s heart attack may have different underlying causes, symptoms and outcomes compared to men.
The research is published in Circulation and was conducted by Laxmi Mehta et al.
Despite stunning improvements in cardiovascular deaths over the last decade, women still fare worse than men and heart disease in women remains underdiagnosed, and undertreated, especially among African-American women.
Causes:
Heart attacks caused by blockages in the main arteries leading to the heart can occur in both men and women. However, the way the blockages form a blood clot may differ.
Compared to men, women can have less severe blockages that do not require any stents; yet the heart’s coronary artery blood vessels are damaged which results in decreased blood flow to the heart muscle.
The result is the same – when blood flow to the heart is decreased for any reason, a heart attack can occur.
If doctors don’t correctly diagnose the underlying cause of a woman’ heart attack, they may not be prescribing the right type of treatments after the heart attack.
Medical therapies are similar regardless of the cause of the heart attack or the severity of the blockages. However, women are undertreated compared to men despite proven benefits of these medications.
Treatment:
Women face greater complications from attempts to restore blood flow because their blood vessels tend to be smaller, they are older and have increased rates of risk factors, such as diabetes and high blood pressure.
Guideline-recommended medications are consistently underutilized in women leading to worse outcomes.
Also, cardiac rehabilitation is prescribed less frequently for women and even when it is prescribed, women are less likely to participate in it or complete it.
Symptoms:
While the most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort for both sexes, women are more likely to have atypical symptoms such as shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting, and back or jaw pain.
Risk factors:
Risk factors for heart attacks also differ in degree of risk in men compared to women.
For example, high blood pressure is more strongly linked to heart attacks in women and if a young woman has diabetes her risk for heart disease is 4 to 5 times higher compared to young men.
Racial differences:
Compared to white women, black women have a higher incidence of heart attacks in all age categories and young black women have higher in-hospital death rates.
Black and Hispanic women tend to have more heart- related risk factors such as diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure at the time of their heart attack compared to non-Hispanic white women.
Understanding gender differences can help improve prevention and treatment among women.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about new way to prevent heart attacks, strokes, and common nutrient that is good for your heart rate.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about how oral health may affect your heart, brain and risk of death, and results showing doing this can prevent 2 million heart disease cases.
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