Q&A: Women and Heart Disease

What are the warning signs or symptoms for a stroke?

Symptoms of stroke include:

• Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg (especially on one side of the body)
• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding speech
• Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
• Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination
• Sudden severe headache with no known cause

If you have any of these symptoms, you must get to a hospital quickly to begin treatment.

What are some warning signs or symptoms of cardiac arrest or a heart attack?

• Of the women who die suddenly from heart disease, 64% of them had no previous symptoms.
• Typical diagnostic tests (electrocardiogram, stress tests or exercise stress tests) to detect heart disease can be less reliable in women compared to men.
• Women often experience very different symptoms of CVD compared to men. For example:
  
  • Women may experience shortness of breath without chest pain
  • Flu-like symptoms like nausea, clamminess or cold-sweats
  • Increased fatigue or dizziness, pain in upper back, neck, shoulders or chest
  • Anxiety-type symptoms.

What is heart disease?

• Cardiovascular disease (CVD) — Impairment of the heart and its blood vessels.
• Coronary artery disease (CAD) — Reduced blood flow through the arteries that supply the heart muscle commonly resulting from atherosclerosis (fatty [cholesterol] plaques on the vessels of the heart).

Do women need to worry about heart disease?

Yes.

• In women, CVD is the most common disease category in hospital discharges.
• Nearly twice as many women die each year from heart disease than from all forms of cancer combined, including breast cancer.
• Each year 39% of American women die from heart disease.
• More women compared to men die within one year of suffering a heart attack.

How do I know if I am at risk or have heart disease?

Uncontrollable risk factors:

• Increasing age
• Gender: Men > Women for heart attacks; Women > Men for strokes (Each year about 46,000 more women than men have strokes, and about 60 percent of total stroke deaths occur in women.)
• Positive family history
• Positive personal history of stroke or heart disease
• Race: Blacks > Whites for heart disease

Controllable risk factors:

• Tobacco use
• High blood cholesterol
• High blood pressure
• Physical inactivity
• Overweight or obese
• Type II diabetes
• For women specifically — excessive alcohol consumption, high blood triglyceride levels and possibly stress (particularly if it leads to excessive eating or drinking)

How do I talk to my doctor about heart disease and what questions should I ask?

Take a look at this page on the Web site for the American Heart Association; there's a lot more information you want to glean:
Ten Questions a Woman Should Ask Her Healthcare Provider

How can I prevent heart disease?

Take care of yourself and control the risk factors you are able to.

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