Do Women Need To Worry About Heart Disease?
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women in the US, killing more women in a year than all types of cancers combined. Surprisingly most women do not even recognize cardiovascular disease as the significant threat that ills. A lot of heart attacks in women are either not diagnosed as such or misdiagnosed as panic attacks. Lack of awareness and research in women’s heart health is a major contributing factor for women not being able to recognize heart attacks and misdiagnosis by the medical community.
Symptoms
Pain Or Discomfort
Women may not go through a crushing pain in the chest that radiates down one arm like men do, but experience more of a severe discomfort or tightness in the chest. Additionally, women may also experience pain in arms, neck, back, jaw, or stomach. The pain may occur suddenly and continue in spasms before becoming intense.
Shortness Of Breath
Heart attack can be accompanied by a sudden shortness of breath like after having exercised heavily but without having moved at all. This can be followed by nausea or light headedness.
Weakness
Sudden bout of undue exhaustion without any prior activity and breaking into a cold sweat are also symptoms of heart attacks.
Who Is At Risk?
As heart disease in women is harder to diagnose and test results are not entirely reliable, it is critical to determine if you are at risk individual and get regular check-ups. Among women. heart attacks are more likely to occur after menopause. Among younger women other factors can increase the probability of heart attacks such as:
- Family history of early heart disease
- High blood pressure
- High cholesterol
- Diabetes
- Smoking
- Overweight
- Sedentary lifestyle
Prevention
Heart diseases can be prevented greatly by simple lifestyle modifications which will also improve your general well-being.
Eat healthy
A well balanced. nutritious diet will hugely reduce your chances of getting a heart attack and control underlying causes like excessive weight, high cholesterol and diabetes.
Exercise
The heart, like any other muscle, needs to work to get stronger. So get your heart pumping with aerobic exercise at least three days a week for about 30 to 60 minutes.
Quit smoking
Almost half of heart attacks in women can be attributed to smoking as a cause. Research shows people who quit smoking entirely consistently reduce the chance of getting cardiovascular disease.
Manage stress
Continuous stress can affect blood pressure and in turn increase risk for heart disease. Learn how to deal with stress and ease it on a daily basis for a healthier heart.
It is important to understand than women are at risk for heart attacks like men but the symptoms for the same condition can differ. Most heart attack deaths are preventable it diagnosed in a timely fashion.
It is thus imperative that information dissemination to women progressively happens for them to be able to take ownership of this epidemic along with constant advocacy for research in women’s heart health.