Women Heart Attack Symptoms

You need to know these women heart attack symptoms.
If you're a woman, you may not believe you're as vulnerable to a heart attack as men–but you are. The latest studies show that of the nearly 500,000 heart attack deaths that occur each year, over 233,000 are women, and more than 87,000 women die each year of stroke. By comparison, about 43,000 women die each year from breast cancer and over 55,000 from lung cancer.

Not a pretty picture. But read on because you can avoid being  one of these statistics.

Why isn't more attention given to women heart attack symptoms?
Clearly heart disease is epidemic in women as well as in men. The main difference between the sexes is not whether women are likely to get heart disease, but when. This isn't commonly recognized because heart disease takes almost a decade longer to show up in women. By then, a woman is often concerned with other health problems she may have, such as cancer, arthritis, or osteoporosis. These diseases tend to draw attention away from the steadily ticking time bomb of heart disease.

Women are less likely to survive a heart attack.
It's true that more men have heart attacks than women and men have them earlier in life. But women have lower chances of surviving them. Studies show that 44 percent of women die within a year compared to 27 percent of men. During the first four years following a heart attack, the rate of having a second attack is 20 percent for women compared with 16 percent for men.

The cause of women heart attack symptoms.
A heart attack occurs when the supply of blood to part of the heart muscle itself is severely reduced or stopped. It happens because one or more of the coronary arteries that supplies blood to the heart is blocked. Depending on how long the blood supply is cut off, the muscle cells in that area of the heart suffer permanent damage or die.

Black women have greater risk of heart attacks.
The 1992 age-adjusted death rate for coronary heart disease is 33 percent higher for black women than for white women.
From ages 35 to 74, the death rate from heart attack among black women is 1.4 times that of white women.
After age 85, death rates for white women are highest.

Women heart attack symptoms occur later in life.
Women tend to be about 10 years older than men when they have a heart attack. They are more likely to have other conditions, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and congestive heart failure–making it all the more vital that they get proper treatment fast.

The heart attack symptom warning signs.

• Pain or discomfort in the center of the chest.

• Pain or discomfort in other areas of the upper body, including the arms, back, neck, jaw, or stomach.

• Shortness of breath, breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea, or light-headedness.

As with men, women's most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort. But women are somewhat more likely than men to experience some of the other common symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting, and back or jaw pain.

If you have heart attack symptoms don't delay!
There are differences in how women and men respond to a heart attack. Women are less likely than men to believe they're having a heart attack and more likely to delay in seeking emergency treatment If you feel heart attack symptoms, do not delay. Remember, minutes matter! Do not wait for more than a few minutes–5 minutes at most–to call 911. Your family will benefit most if you seek fast treatment.

Slowly but surely heart disease women is declining.
In the ten years from 1982 to 1992, the age-adjusted death rates for women declined by 28.7 percent for coronary heart disease, by 26.8 percent for stroke, and by 22.4 percent for all cardiovascular diseases.

This progress is due in part to advances in the diagnosis and treatment of heart patients. A greater focus on heart attack prevention and women heart attack symptoms has also helped. Many women are learning how poor lifestyle habits increase the risk of heart disease in women, and they're changing these habits to cut their risk.

Life style changes reducing women heart attack symptoms.
For example, in the United States, smoking has declined by more than 37 percent since 1965. Smoking among women has declined by 27 percent—more than one of every four women who smoked regularly in 1965 have quit.

The news is not so positive for weight management and regular exercise.

Menopause and women heart attack symptoms
Female hormones, estrogen and progesterone, appear to provide a protective effect against cardiovascular disease. As women go through menopause, when hormone levels drop, there is often an elevation of cholesterol and increased risk of cardiovascular disease (2, 39).

Policosanol and women heart attack symptoms.
A large randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled study, with 224 postmenopausal women with elevated cholesterol was conducted to investigate the efficacy of policosanol.

After eighteen weeks, the group receiving policosanol experienced 17% lower cholesterol, a 25% reduction in LDL cholesterol, and a significant 29% increase  in HDL cholesterol (40). Four serious cardiac events occurred in the placebo group compared to none in the policosanol group.