Women who think they’ve got flu when it’s really a heart attack

Heart disease kills FAR more women than breast cancer — yet many don’t know the danger signs

(they’re partly protected by female hormones before the menopause), their heart tissue is also older, making it less elastic.

AND THEIR HEART DISEASE IS MISSED

Just as worrying is that women at risk of heart attack are not being spotted, as research presented at the annual conference of the American College of Cardiology last month suggests.

A survey of more than 1,000 women found that many women who had at least one risk factor for heart disease were not warned of the danger.

the risk factors include high blood pressure, diabetes, a family history of heart disease or irregular menstrual periods — which together with endometriosis (where small womb-like tissue grows elsewhere in the body) are now recognised as being associated with heart disease.

Instead, many of the women with these risk factors were advised just to lose weight. As Dr Noel BaireyMerz, an authority on women and heart disease, told the conference: ‘Preventing heart disease is not simply about losing weight.

‘It’s about getting your blood pressure and cholesterol checked or your blood sugar checked, or being told not to smoke, or getting advice on being heart healthy and exercising — as is more likely to happen routinely with men.’

And when heart disease is diagnosed, a recent study carried out by Professor Douglas analysing how doctors responded to test results in 10,000 men and women with similar coronary artery disease, found that ‘compared with men, women were almost always characterised as at lower risk’.

A major problem is that women’s smaller hearts and surrounding blood vessels make examining them more difficult.

Women with heart disease are also less likely to be picked up with a ‘stress test’. this is one of the basic first tests for heart disease, and involves walking on a treadmill at an increasing pace while heart rhythm or blood flow is monitored.

Yet research just published in the journal Cardiovascular Imaging found that while this test picks up cardiac problems in men, it works less well with women.

this may be partly because women are more likely to lack the muscle strength to keep walking for long enough to reveal their heart problems. the result of all this is that women are less likely to be taking drugs such as ACE inhibitors, beta blockers, statins and low-dose aspirin: four drugs that reduce the risk of first or further heart attack.

NEW CHECKS THAT COULD SAVE LIVES

thE good news is that there is now a new ‘ high sensitivity cardiac troponin’ blood test that could improve diagnosis of women’s heart attacks — an early study found it doubled the diagnosis rate in women.

Meanwhile, another type of imaging, the nuclear stress test (Myocardial Perfusion Imaging), may be better able to diagnose a heart attack where there is no clear obstruction in the large arteries.

this shows how well blood is flowing through the heart and may therefore be better at detecting problems caused by gradual

erosion of plaque or blockages in the smaller arteries that are more common in women.

in guidelines issued this month, the national institute for Health and care excellence recommends patients with chest pain be offered the test in addition to computed tomography Angiography (ctA), a test used when an echocardiogram (a type of ultrasound scan of the heart and surrounding blood vessels, used by cardiologists to diagnose those at risk of a heart attack) doesn’t provide sufficient information about the size and site of a blockage.

Meanwhile, despite the delay in seeking treatment and a rocky start, Jill Wakeford is now doing well.

She had a stent fitted in the obstructed artery but this failed, and six months later had a coronary bypass, which required six months’ rehabilitation.

But six years on she is otherwise healthy and says she’s been incredibly lucky: ‘i just want people to know how important it is to get treatment as quickly as possible.’