Listen to Your Heart: Learn About Heart Disease

— Written By and last updated by Amy Jordan
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Woman making a heart with hands

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women of all ages, races, and shapes and sizes in the United States. But women sometimes experience heart disease differently than men. Healthy eating and physical activity go a long way to preventing heart disease, and keeping it from getting worse if you already have it. Read on to learn more about heart disease, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, how to find out if you’re at risk, how to protect your heart, and more.

Symptoms of a heart attack:

  • Women are somewhat less likely than men to experience chest pain. Instead, they are more likely to experience:
    • Dizziness
    • Fatigue
    • Nausea
    • Pressure or tightness in the chest
    • Stomach pain
  • Women are also more likely than men to have no symptoms of coronary heart disease. Because women and their doctors may not recognize coronary heart disease symptoms that are different from men’s, women may not be diagnosed and treated as quickly as men. It is important to seek care right away if you have symptoms of coronary heart disease.
  • Learn what a heart attack feels like.

Follow up treatment for heart disease:

  • Doctors are less likely to refer women for diagnostic tests for coronary heart disease.
  • Women are more likely than men to experience delays receiving an initial EKG, are less likely to receive care from a heart specialist during hospitalization, and are less likely to receive certain types of therapy and medicines.
  • Younger women are more likely than men to be misdiagnosed and sent home from the emergency department after cardiac events that occur from undiagnosed and untreated vascular heart disease.

Learn more about women and heart disease. 

Risk Factors for Heart Disease

Risk factors are conditions or habits that make a person more likely to develop a disease. They can also increase the chances that an existing disease will get worse. Many of the risk factors that affect men also affect women. Important risk factors for heart disease are:

Family history of early heart disease is a risk factor that can’t be changed. If your father or brother had a heart attack before age 55, or if your mother or sister had one before age 65, you are more likely to get heart disease yourself.

You may wonder: If I have just one risk factor for heart disease—say, I’m overweight or I have high blood cholesterol—aren’t I more or less “safe”? Unfortunately, no. Each risk factor greatly increases your chance of developing heart disease. But having more than one risk factor is especially serious, because risk factors tend to “gang up” and worsen each other’s effects.

Specific Risk Factors Affecting Women
For women, age becomes a risk factor at 55. After menopause, women are more apt to get heart disease, in part because their body’s production of estrogen drops. Women who go through early menopause, either naturally or because they had a hysterectomy, are twice as likely to develop heart disease as women of the same age who have not yet gone through menopause. Another reason for the increasing risk is that middle age is a time when women tend to develop risk factors for heart disease.

Preeclampsia—high blood pressure during pregnancy—is another heart disease risk factor that you can’t control. However, if you’ve had the condition, you should take extra care to try to control other heart disease risk factors.

Take Action for Your Heart Health
While some risk factors, such as age and family history of early heart disease, can’t be changed, the truth is, there is something we can do at every stage of life to reduce our risk of heart disease.

Being more physically active and eating a healthy diet are important steps for your heart health. You can make the changes gradually, one at a time. But making them is very important.

Here’s some things you can do now for your heart health:

  • Move more
  • Improve your nutrition and eat healthier
  • Check your heart health stats/numbers
  • Improve sleep and reduce stress
  • Stop smoking
  • Aim for a healthy weight

So, the message is clear: Every woman needs to take her heart disease risk seriously—and take action now to reduce that risk.

Written By

Dee Furlough, N.C. Cooperative ExtensionDee FurloughCounty Extension Director & Extension Agent, Family and Consumer Sciences Call Dee Email Dee N.C. Cooperative Extension, Tyrrell County Center
Updated on Feb 10, 2021
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