A new research shows that young women are less likely to be informed that they are at risk of a heart attack before having it than men, resulting in higher mortality rate of younger women dying earlier than men of a similar age.
According to past studies, heart disease is the number 1 cause of death for women in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that almost two-thirds of those deaths are of women with coronary heart disease have no previous symptoms.
For the study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, scientists studied patients aged 18 to 55 who have had a heart attack. Almost all of the patients have at least one of the five possibly potential risk factors for heart disease: diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, obesity, and smoking.
Although almost 50% of the participants said they are certain that they are at-risk of heart disease before their heart attack, women were 11 percent less likely to say they were informed of the risk. Experts found that 16 percent of them are also less likely to say that a doctor talked to them about heart disease and ways to decrease their risk of having it.
An associate research scientist in epidemiology at Yale University, Lead study author Erica Leifheit-Limson, PhD, tells Yahoo Health that age is one key factor in the anomaly. She also explained that heart disease if mostly considered a disease for people who are older, especially for women. Younger patients, have yet to realize that having a heart attack is as big possibility for them as it is for people older than they are. They also fail to realize that heart attack is the leading cause of death for the younger age group.
Deborah Kwon, MD, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic's Women's Cardiovascular Center, told Yahoo Health that heart diseases are often incorrectly considered as a male problem, which can cause women to think they're experiencing symptoms of something else other than heart disease.
Women also have a possibility to have more atypical symptoms of heart disease than men. These symptoms include, frequent nausea, jaw pain, or back pain. This may be the reason why it's more difficult for some primary care givers to diagnose female patients with heart disease.
