"Women Die From Heart Attacks More Often Than Men. Here’s Why and What Doctors Are Doing About It" - Barbara Sadick
Cardiovascular disease is the number-one cause of death in both men and women. Statistics from the American Heart Association show that one woman every minute dies from heart disease in the U.S. An estimated 44 million American women are affected by CVD, and 90 percent have one or more risk factors for it. The good news is that 80 percent of heart attacks and strokes can be prevented by lifestyle changes, but when heart attacks do occur, fewer women than men survive the first attack. That’s largely because heart-disease symptoms in women can be different from those in men—and even some physicians misread the subtleties. The rise in deaths related to heart disease in the late 1980s coincided with the entry of women into the workforce in equal numbers as men. However when women went to work, their traditional roles in the home didn’t change. “There was just added stress, pressure and challenges, with women tending to put themselves last and pay attention to their own needs less,” says Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, DO, director of women’s cardiovascular prevention, health and wellness at The Mount Sinai Hospital.
— Suzanne R. Steinbaum, DO, Senior Faculty, Medicine, Cardiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Director, Women’s Cardiovascular Prevention, Health and Wellness, The Mount Sinai Hospital