Heart Attacks In Women Of Every Age
Heart attacks in women are the leading cause of death for women in the US. Every woman needs to know the signs of heart attack and pay attention any time she experiences strange symptoms she can’t explain. Taking action right away and getting medical help can make the difference between a full recovery and heart damage or death.
We are going to look today at the trend of heart attacks increasing in younger and younger women so that women of every age become aware of the risk and perhaps become prepared to protect their health and lives.
In addition to knowing the symptoms, women can take steps to prevent heart attacks and make a real difference for themselves. The good news is that a high percentage of heart attacks are preventable. One of the suspicious risk factors that young women experience very often is stress.
Take steps today to reduce the stress you experience every day and automatically you will be doing the right thing to protect your heart and your life.
In the excerpt below from Fox News, you will see one woman’s story and some important information about why younger women are having more heart attacks.
“It felt less like a surface-level cough—it felt deeper,” she said. “From there, everything was very slow motion. I was so tired with every movement. It was exhausting.”…
…Not only did Wayne suffer a heart attack, but she went into cardiac arrest four times. Doctors put two stents in her heart to open up a blocked artery and she remained in the hospital for eight days as family and friends gathered around her, praying and wishing her a speedy recovery.
“I’ve always thought about [a heart attack] as something way off in the future—as something that would happen to my parents, not me,” she said…
…Coronary heart disease is often seen as something that affects middle-age or older women, yet more young women than ever before are at risk and they have no idea, experts say…
…Andersen said that in women between ages 29 and 45, both heart disease and stroke are on the rise.
Although it’s not clear why there has been an uptick, experts say it likely has a lot to do with the fact that risk factors such as obesity, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes are also increasing.
Most people with obesity also have insulin resistance, a syndrome that leads to pre-diabetes, diabetes and coronary heart disease, said Dr. Steven R. Gundry, a cardiologist in Palm Springs, California.
Not surprisingly, an unhealthy diet plays a role, especially one that includes too much meat, sugar and processed, packaged foods…
…Stress may also play a role in heart disease risk and millennials, Generation Xers and women are the most stressed, according to a survey by the American Psychological Association. – Fox News
Men And Women Are Different When It Comes To Heart Attacks
If you are a woman, you need to realize that you need to be informed about what “women’s” symptoms are concerning heart attacks. Women unlike men, often do not have chest pains. Part of the reason is that women can experience heart attacks from very different causes than men.
Take a look at this excerpt about how men and women differ when it comes to heart disease and heart attack symptoms. Then be sure to talk to your doctor and pay attention to your lifestyle and symptoms so your heart keeps beating for many years to come!
Research has begun to recognize “that men and women are different in many ways besides our reproductive systems,” says Janine Clayton, director of the office of research on women’s health at the National Institutes of Health. This is especially true with heart disease, where the differences between men and women can be striking.
The most frequent sign of heart attack in a man is chest pain. Women also experience chest pain, but they are more likely than men to have nausea, shortness of breath, dizziness, indigestion, pain in the shoulder or jaw or even in the back, and fatigue that can persist for days, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Also, as with Nichols, women more often than men have heart attacks where there is no coronary obstruction, and the danger is hard to detect ahead of time, according to the NHLBI. In such cases, plaque doesn’t accumulate to form major blockages; rather, it spreads evenly throughout the walls of blood vessels, producing “clear” tests. Nevertheless, research indicates that these women are at a high risk of having a heart attack that results from a narrowing in the very small arteries of the heart.
“Women’s cells and lungs are different from men’s,” Clayton says, and women have smaller coronary blood vessels. “If you have multiple very small blood vessels involved [in a heart attack],” she adds, “it won’t give you crushing chest pain.” But it may give you coronary microvascular disease, which affects the walls and inner lining of tiny blood vessels that branch off from the larger coronary arteries. These small vessels typically do not have plaque, but they sometimes trigger spasms and decreased blood flow to the heart muscle, impairing the heart’s ability to pump blood throughout the body, according to the American Heart Association. – Washington Post
Have you ever had any of these symptoms of heart attack?