Getting to the Heart of the Matter: Women and Heart Health

Although there’s a stereotype that heart disease is a men’s health issue, it has major, overlooked impacts on women, too.

February is American Heart Health month. Although there’s a stereotype that heart disease is a men’s health issue, it has major, overlooked impacts on women, too. We’re sharing a few facts about women and cardiovascular disease (conditions that affect the heart, blood vessels, and circulation) plus ways you can start to take charge of your heart health.

Facts and figures

• Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the U.S., responsible for about 1 in every 5 female deaths in 2020.
• Cardiovascular disease kills more women than all forms of cancer combined and yet only 44% of women recognize that cardiovascular disease is their greatest health threat.
• Among women 20 years and older, nearly 45% are living with some form of cardiovascular disease
• Cardiovascular disease is the no. 1 killer of new moms and accounts for over one-third of maternal deaths
• 51.9% of high blood pressure deaths, otherwise known as hypertension or the “silent killer,” are in women
• Risk factors for cardiovascular disease include: history of preeclampsia, PCOS, and endometriosis.
• While there are an estimated 4.1 million female stroke survivors living today, approximately 57.5% of total stroke deaths are in women
• Women are often less likely to receive bystander CPR because rescuers often fear accusations of inappropriate touching, sexual assault or injuring the victim

Heart-to-heart: how heart attack symptoms differ in men and women

The classic signs of a heart attack are based on how men experience symptoms: chest pain or discomfort, often in the center or the left side of the chest that lasts for more than a few minutes, or that goes away and then comes back. Women, however, are more likely to have other symptoms that are not as commonly recognized, like nausea or unexplained fatigue. These less familiar symptoms cause delays in receiving critical care. With a narrow window of time — within a few hours of a heart attack — for optimal treatment, that delay has a deadly impact.

Because women and men can display different symptoms of heart disease and heart attack, and given that most research has been conducted on men, women do not recognize their symptoms of a heart attack. Health care providers are also more likely to downplay their symptoms or delay treatment.

Taking care of your heart

There are many ways to address heart health, and in fact, many cardiac and stroke events can be prevented through education and lifestyle changes.

• Maintain a healthy weight and nutritious diet: Maintaining a healthy weight and eating healthy are vital. Stepping up movement with more walking, or other activities is also helpful.
• Stay physically active: find joyful movement throughout your day, whether it’s going for short walks, exercise snacks, or picking up a new sport.
• Reduce or quit smoking and any tobacco use: quitting smoking or other forms of tobacco will cut the risk of having a heart attack in half just two years later.
• Get the right health screenings: depending on your age and other risk factors, screenings and labs for blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels help with making informed choices.
• Manage stress and mental health: chronic stress and depression affect heart health. Symptoms of depression and anxiety can stress heart rate and raise blood pressure. They can reduce blood flow to the heart and raise levels of cortisol (a stress hormone). Over time, these symptoms can lead to heart disease.
• Get support to manage menopause: while menopause itself does not cause heart disease, it does mark a point in midlife when a woman’s risk of heart disease increases. It’s crucial to maintain your health with a trusted provider at this stage.

Did you know…

• Women under 50 who smoke have a 13x higher risk of a heart attack than women who don’t smoke?
• Depression is considered a risk factor for heart disease? Women are nearly twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with depression.
• Research on heart disease in women is severely underfunded? More than 500,000 women die from heart disease in the U.S. annually — almost twice as many women as breast, lung, ovarian and uterine cancers combined, but just 4.5% of research funds focus specifically on women.