Women and Heart Disease: Life-Saving Information You Need to Know

By Dr. Lou Ignarro • April 7, 2014 • Cardio Corner with Dr. Ignarro

What health issue are you most concerned about? When I ask this question of men, they tend to say heart disease or prostate cancer; women often respond with breast or skin cancer. Only one in five American women see cardiovascular disease (CVD) as the top threat to their health—and yet CVD kills more women than all cancers combined, according to the American Heart Association. The disease is a devastating worldwide killer, with an estimated 23.3 million dying annually from CVD by 2030. And CVD doesn’t just affect the sick and old—it can touch any age, which is why it’s so important to be educated about heart health, especially when you’re young.
Women are particularly vulnerable to dying from CVD. Consider these statistics:

• When a woman under 50 has a heart attack or bypass surgery, she is twice as likely to die as a man.
• CVD kills one in three women, or one every minute. Comparably, breast cancer kills one in 31 women annually.
  
• Women are less likely to have traditional heart attack symptoms like the “elephant sitting on the chest” sensation, making it more difficult to identify a heart attack.
  
• Approximately 90 percent of women have one or more risk factors for developing heart disease.
  
• Women tend to develop CVD 10 years later than men, making survival less likely due to age. This increases the risk that they’ll have another disease that masks the symptoms of heart disease.

Along with a healthy lifestyle that includes good nutrition and regular exercise, annual physicals with your doctor are an important preventive measure. But what if you think you might be having a heart attack? Here’s what to look for in women: