{"id":65512,"date":"2016-01-27T08:00:01","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T13:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=65512"},"modified":"2016-01-26T20:15:31","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T01:15:31","slug":"women-heart-attack-causes-symptoms-may-differ-from-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=65512","title":{"rendered":"Women Heart Attack Causes, Symptoms May Differ from Men"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"american-heart-logo-black\"<\/a>(Jan. 27, 2016) A woman\u2019s heart attack may have different underlying causes,\u00a0symptoms and outcomes compared to men, and differences in risk factors and outcomes are further pronounced in black and Hispanic women, according to a scientific statement published in the American Heart Association\u2019s Journal Circulation.<\/p>\n

The statement is the first scientific statement from the American Heart Association on\u00a0heart attack\u00a0<\/a>in women. It notes that there have been dramatic declines in cardiovascular deaths among women due to improved treatment and prevention of heart disease as well as increased public awareness.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite stunning improvements in cardiovascular deaths over the last decade, women still fare worse than men and heart disease in women remains \u00a0underdiagnosed, and undertreated, especially among\u00a0African-American women,\u201d said writing group chair Laxmi Mehta, M.D., a noninvasive cardiologist and Director of the Women\u2019s Cardiovascular Health Program at The Ohio State University.<\/p>\n

Causes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Heart attacks caused by\u00a0blockages in the main arteries\u00a0leading to the heart can occur in both men and women. However, the way the blockages form a blood clot may differ. \u00a0Compared to men, women can have less severe blockages that do not require any stents; \u00a0yet the heart\u2019s coronary artery blood vessels are damaged which results in decreased blood flow to the heart muscle. \u00a0The result is the same \u2013 when blood flow to the heart is decreased for any reason, a heart attack can occur. If doctors don\u2019t correctly diagnose the underlying cause of a woman\u2019 heart attack, they may not be prescribing the right type of treatments after the heart attack. \u00a0Medical therapies are similar regardless of the cause of the heart attack or the severity of the blockages. However women are undertreated compared to men despite proven benefits of these medications.<\/p>\n

Treatment:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Women face greater complications from attempts to restore blood flow because their blood vessels tend to be smaller, they are older and have increased rates of risk factors, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Guideline recommended medications are consistently underutilized in women leading to worse outcomes.\u00a0 Also, cardiac rehabilitation is prescribed less frequently for women and even when it is prescribed, women are less likely to participate in it or complete it.<\/p>\n

Symptoms:<\/p>\n

While the most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort for both sexes, women are more likely to have atypical symptoms such as shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting, and back or jaw pain.<\/p>\n

Risk factors:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Risk factors for heart attacks also differ in degree of risk in men compared to women. For example,\u00a0high blood pressure\u00a0is more strongly associated with heart attacks in women and if a young woman has diabetes her risk for heart disease is 4 to 5 times higher compared to young men.<\/p>\n

Racial differences:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Compared to white women, black women have a higher incidence\u00a0 of heart attacks in all age categories and young black women have higher in-hospital death rates.\u00a0 Black and Hispanic women tend to have more heart- related risk factors such as diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure at the time of their heart attack compared to non-Hispanic white women.\u00a0 \u00a0Compared to white women, black women are also less likely to be referred for important treatments such as cardiac catheterization..<\/p>\n

Understanding gender differences can help improve prevention and treatment among women. \u201cWomen should not be afraid to ask questions \u2013 we advise all women to have more open and candid discussions with their doctor about both medication and interventional treatments to prevent and treat a heart attack,\u201d Mehta said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoronary heart disease afflicts 6.6 million American women annually and remains the leading threat to the lives of women. Helping women prevent and survive heart attacks through increased research and improving ethnic and racial disparities in prevention and treatment is a public health priority,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Jan. 27, 2016) A woman\u2019s heart attack may have different underlying causes,\u00a0symptoms and outcomes compared to men, and differences in risk factors and outcomes are further pronounced in black and Hispanic women, according to a scientific statement published in the American Heart Association\u2019s Journal Circulation. The statement is the first scientific statement from the American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-h2E","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/american-heart-logo-black.jpg?fit=512%2C482&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}