Heart attack symptoms in women

Here we tell you how to identify the signs prior to a heart attack and how to avoid risk factors.

Women and heart attacks

What has changed to make women more vulnerable to heart attacks today? This is mainly due to a change in habits. In the past, women endured fewer work pressures (they had less access to positions of responsibility, now added to household chores), and they smoked and drank less.

Nowadays women are more subjected to stressful situations in couples, at work, within the family. Above all, we smoke much more than before.

Evil of many

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more people die each year worldwide from cardiovascular diseases than from any other cause. In Spain, coronary disease is the leading cause of death in women. According to the Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC), mortality after a first serious heart attack is 20% higher in women, especially in countries such as Spain.

Mortality

Heart attacks in women have a worse short-term prognosis than in men. The average number of men who die of a heart attack between the ages of 35 and 74 is 46%, most of them in the first hours or during the first month after the attack.

With women, the mortality rate is higher and increases to 53%. Diabetes and high blood pressure among women who have suffered a heart attack are the determining factors regarding mortality.

It has also been proved that women take longer to see a specialist, among other reasons because both the women and the emergency physician may have more difficulty in identifying heart attack symptoms.

Differences in heart attack symptoms between men and women

Did you know that heart attack symptoms are different in men than in women? You don´t know everything! Beyond chest and left arm pain, typical of men, there are other reasons why you should go to the doctor as soon as possible.