Study shows more women at risk of heart disease
New report says too many women are suffering and dying from heart disease
After a day of racing around the house to help her sister plan for a wedding shower, Jan Hall couldn’t help but feel like something was off.
She was tired and a little short of breath. She shrugged it off as a busy day. But when she got home the pain in her shoulders and her arms was hard to ignore.
“I thought something is just not right,” said Hall. “When I got home I fell onto my bed with the pain in my back and arms and just waited for it to pass. Looking back, just climbing up the stairs I was out of breath, so the signs were all there.”
That was 17 years ago, and Hall, now 69, is happy she decided to go to the hospital. Her father had died of a heart attack and her mom had multiple stents in her coronary arteries, so Hall knew heart disease was in her family. After some tests at the hospital, it was determined she had an angina attack and had a few stents put into her arteries.
Angina is caused by blockages in the heart’s arteries that can trigger chest pain or discomfort from the heart muscle not getting enough oxygen-rich blood. It can present as a pressure or squeezing in the chest, but discomfort can also occur in the shoulders, arms, neck, jaw or back. It can also feel like indigestion.
“The whole time I was thinking about my father,” Hall said. “You always think: ‘It’s never gonna happen to me.’ You think maybe the tiredness is because I overdid it or maybe my back is sore because I pulled a muscle. You’re always looking for reasons, when you should be paying heed to the symptoms.”
In 2005, she had another angina attack but this time the symptoms were completely different. She had indigestion, shortness of breath, a clenching of her jaw and, overall, she just didn’t feel well. She went back to the hospital and was told she needed a few more stents. Hall continues to take medication, like nitroglycerine, daily.
“I feel really good except for some extra weight caused by the medications,” she said. “But I’m always waiting for the ball to fall again. I’m waiting for and looking for the symptoms again.”
A newly released report by the Heart and Stroke Foundation, called Ms. Understood, says too many women are suffering and dying from heart disease.
A woman in Canada dies from heart disease every 20 minutes, according to the report. Five times as many women will die from heart disease as breast cancer and the symptoms are missed by women 78 per cent of the time.
Statistics Canada reports 25,000 women die each year from heart disease, yet two-thirds of heart disease clinical research focuses on men.
“The report says it best,” said Holly Kirk McLean, manager of Heart and Stroke Foundation Windsor. “Women are defined by a bunch of unders — underresearched, under-diagnosed, under-treated, under-supported and under-aware.”
This is the first time the annual report, which was released in February for Heart Month, has focused on the gap that exists between men and women. While men and women’s hearts may look the same physiologically, they are different. Women’s hearts and coronaries are smaller, women tend to have lower blood pressure and a faster resting heart rate than men of the same age. But women’s hearts are impacted by things like pregnancy, hormonal changes and menopause.
“This is important that we are getting this out because most of the research has been done on men and they really thought for years this would be a one-size fits all solution, but it’s not,” McLean said. “Now they are focusing on women’s heart health to get a clear picture on what needs to be done.”
Women tend to ignore the common signs. For most women, these symptoms are just part of everyday life and they ’re not thinking about a heart attack.
Heart and Stroke honorary chair and Olympic figure skating medallist Joannie Rochette lost her mom, Therese, 55, two days before she was to compete at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Like many women, her mom had been experiencing some symptoms, but chose to just wait. Rochette’s mom was doing what most women do — focusing on everyone else in her life.
“After my mom passed away we found a piece of paper in her wallet that outlined some of the symptoms she was experiencing,” Rochette said, in a statement. “She had never talked to us about them. She had pain in her left shoulder, numbness in her hands, blurry vision and she was tired all the time.
“When I saw that piece of paper, I felt guilty for not noticing it sooner.”