Contrary to popular belief, women comprise 60% of all heart attack related deaths in the United States. This number is astounding. In addition, it is also disturbing to note that women are more likely to die from heart disease than men. One of the main reasons for this is that women tend to ignore the early warning signs of an impending attack. Why? Most of the symptoms occurring in women are vague and generally resemble other less threatening conditions. Unfortunately, this leads women to delay seeking treatment because they do not understand their risks.
Even though the risk factors for heart attacks are the same for both men and women, it has been shown that women respond differently to symptoms due to preconceived notions. For the most part, women tend to be older with higher incidence of hypertension and higher cholesterol and blood sugar levels, but are less likely to be smokers. Amazingly, women never consider their symptoms to be heart disease related and therefore do not seek out treatment as early as they should, believing it is primarily a man's disease. Consequently, this can lead to dire repercussions.
Symptoms that most women report experiencing include shoulder and abdominal pain, nausea, shortness of breath and fatigue. Due to the generalized nature of these symptoms women tend to blame them on something else, not believing they are signs of a heart attack, and delay seeking treatment which leads to the possibility of more severe damage to the heart muscle. In addition, women who have experienced a heart attack also run the risk of having a second attack within five years.
It is also disturbing to note that women who enter an emergency room will probably experience a delay in validation that she is actually experiencing a heart attack. The reason? EKG testing has shown not display the 'classic' symptoms of a heart attack. This results in delay of being admitted to the cardiac unit and receiving life-saving thrombolytic medications as quickly as a man would. Unfortunately, this accounts for the higher mortality rate for women experiencing a heart attack.
It is a proven fact that women tend to have a higher fatality rate than men when it comes to heart disease problems. Nevertheless, many women are still relatively unclear about the danger this disease causes. Heart disease symptoms should not be ignore and women must learn to recognize them and seek treatment early.
Barb Hicks is an established writer and registered nurse who loves to share her knowledge about Human Heart Anatomy with others. She has more articles including What is Heart Blockage on Clivir.com.