Two friends had major heart attacks over a year ago and survived! It’s good reason to look at serious problems with heart attacks and women. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the US, responsible for about 1 in 5 female deaths. Shockingly, most of the testing is done on men. And also women’s risk factors are different from men’s. Here are some basics with pointers to more information.
Here are some facts around the problem.
- Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the United States and can affect women at any age.
- In 2021, heart disease was responsible for the deaths of 310,661 women—or about 1 in every 5 female deaths.
- Research has shown that only about half (56%) of US women recognize that heart disease is their number 1 killer.3
Women are underrepresented in clinical trials for coronary heart disease and heart failure. Go Red For Women has lots to say about this. See “Women Not Represented in Research Equally.”
Mayo Clinic, in an article about “Heart disease in women: Understand symptoms and risk factors” talks about symptoms for women.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital published, “Heart Disease: 7 Differences Between Men and Women.” One thing they talk about in the article is differing risk factors between men and women. Take a look at different risk factors for women from that article.
Also Menopause! The picture above from GoodRX shows some other risk factors for women. You can read more about it also at GoodRX in ‘Heart Attacks In Women.”
Be aware that heart disease is deadly for many women, that women have some different symptoms of heart attack coming, and take care of yourself!!
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