Overview
- Cardiologists in the UK and India are stepping up warnings this week, telling women that heart attacks often start with quiet signs that are easy to miss.
- Experts list red flags such as unusual breathlessness, persistent fatigue, nausea or indigestion, palpitations, cold sweats, and pain in the jaw, neck or between the shoulder blades.
- Doctors explain that women can have heart disease in smaller vessels with different plaque patterns, and that risk rises after menopause as estrogen’s protective effect wanes.
- Women are advised to get regular checks of blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol from age 30, and to ask about cardiac screening sooner if they have diabetes, high blood pressure, a family history or smoke.
- Heart Research UK says about 23,000 women die from coronary heart disease each year in Britain, and its HER campaign aims to counter the myth that heart disease is mainly a male problem.