Did you know that according to the Mayo Clinic, more women than men die each year from heart disease? Why is that? Part of the problem may lie in the way that women experience the symptoms of heart disease. The typical symptoms of a heart attack are:

• Pain or pressure in your chest
• Shortness of breath, weakness, or anxiety
• Discomfort that spreads to your arm or back
• Fast or irregular heart beats
• Gastric discomfort – nausea, indigestion, or heartburn

When most of us think about heart attacks, we think about chest pain. But in women, the chest pain is not always the crushing type that we imagine. For women, the chest pain can be more subtle or even absent, and the other symptoms can be more obvious. One study reports that the symptoms most frequently reported by women are unusual fatigue, problems sleeping, indigestion, shortness of breath and anxiety. So I’m thinking, that might make it pretty difficult to decide whether I’m having a heart attack or not. The key is not to wait to seek medical attention. Early treatment can make a huge difference.

There are steps we can take to help lessen our risk of heart disease too. In fact, each risk factor that you have for heart disease can increase your risk exponentially. Some risk factors add four or ten times the risk. There are some risk factors that you can’t control like age, menopause, and preeclampsia. If you’ve experienced preeclampsia during pregnancy, you have twice the risk of developing heart disease. That makes it important to control the risk factors you have some control over, like smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, lack of physical activity, and obesity. Stress, depression, anemia, and sleep apnea can also put you at higher risk of heart disease.

The American Heart Association has great information about heart health. Be heart healthy, check it out!