Heart Attacks, Women, and an Astounding Discovery

Incredible, but true: Medical experts have discovered that women are not small men!

That startling fact has been known for some time:

"Heart To Heart"
"How Symptoms of Heart Disease Differ in Men and Women."
Susan L. Comer in HealthCare Directions Magazine, via Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island (Spring 2003)

"Heart disease has long been considered a man's bastion, albeit one they'd gladly relinquish. But gender stereotyping can be deadly in matters of the heart. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, claiming 950,000 lives annually. More than half of these deaths occur among women. And even as women are often unaware...."

"Many Women Still Misinformed About Heart Disease"
"Risk factors and symptoms of trouble can be very different from those for men"
Dennis Thompson, HealthDay Reporter, via Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi (2005)

"FRIDAY, March 31 (HealthDay News) -- It's a health message that doctors have been directing at women for some time, but too often it fails to get through: The classic sign of a heart attack isn't always searing pain in the chest, usually lasting several minutes.

"But that's not necessarily the symptom felt by women, who make up 50 percent of America's heart attack victims.

" 'Women more often than men experience shortness of breath, unusual fatigue, or the pressure is lower down in the chest so it is mistaken for a stomach ailment,' said Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a cardiologist with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City and author of Women Are Not Small Men....." (available on Amazon.com and elsewhere)

Aside from being useful (maybe life-saving) information and advice, I think these articles, and the Dr. Goldberg's book, are examples of how the medical profession is starting to realize that not all knowledge is found in the textbooks, and that human beings don't necessarily work exactly the way 'experts' thought they should, back around 1900.

Yes! They can be taught!

"A decade or so ago, many healthcare providers didn't consider women candidates for heart disease either. 'What would happen,' says Marla Mendelson, M.D., a cardiologist at Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital, 'is that women came in with chest pain and were sent home with antacids, and men came in with chest pain and got stress tests, angiograms, and surgery.'

"Consequently, until the late 1990s, women were virtually absent from heart disease studies. 'The historical assumption,' says Dr. Wenger, 'was that whatever occurred in middle-aged men was the norm and that that could be extrapolated both to women and to older patients of both genders. And, of course, that's not the case.' Certainly, the classic presentation of chest pain for an imminent heart attack remains common, but other symptoms may also occur. 'If you look at a population of both sexes over 80 or 85 years of age,' she says, 'only about a third have pain.' More frequent is shortness of breath or severe fatigue....'