Heart disease can affect women differently, and warning signs may not always involve obvious chest pain. Learn about key symptoms, risk factors and why women should pay closer attention to heart health.
Heart disease is often thought as a men's problem, but not many realise that it is also one of the leading causes of illness and death among women. Research indicates that the incidence of cardiovascular disease among women is lower before menopause. This is due to the atheroprotective effect of female sex hormones like estrogen, which tends to make people discount the possibility that women can also suffer from heart disease. This leads to a much-delayed recognition of heart disease among women, which may sometimes result in severe heart-related complications and even death.
Heart Disease Risk Factors in Women: Common Vs Gender-Specific
Aside from the fact that women have a slightly thorough protective effect due to high estrogen levels, all other major risk factors are common to both men and women. These could be family history, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity. However, women also face certain gender-specific additional risk factors that are often ignored or not taken into consideration. For instance, conditions like PMOS (previously called PCOS), autoimmune and other inflammatory diseases are more specific to women. Sometimes, early menopause takes away the atheroprotective effect of estrogen, making women more vulnerable to heart diseases.
Pregnancy related complications like preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, pregnancy-associated hypertension, and a tendency for spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) are also very unique to women. These manifestations are over and above the risk factors that are common in both genders. Unfortunately, the medical fraternity sometimes underestimates these female-specific risks, which may lead to misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis of heart disease among women. Smoking among women is also another growing risk factor that must not be ignored.
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Symptoms
Heart disease in women tend to present slightly different from the classical symptoms such as unusual shortness of breath, extreme fatigue, nausea, vomiting, indigestion, pressure in the jaw, back, or neck, dizziness, and cold sweating. These symptoms are often ignored or assumed to be due to anxiety, periods, or various other reasons, entirely neglecting the possibility of a heart problem. That is why it is extremely important to recognize the fact that women also can suffer heart attack and heart diseases, though its presentation may be different. Medical experts also have to be extremely cautious when women present with this type of symptoms and evaluate them for the possibility of heart problems.
-This article is authored by Dr. Pradeep Haranahalli, Consultant - Interventional Cardiology, Manipal Hospital Whitefield
