Dedicated Program Focuses on Heart & Vascular Health in Women

Why Does Cardiovascular Disease Affect Women Differently?

Some heart disease risk factors are common to both men and women. However, several factors make heart and vascular disease especially dangerous to women. These include:

Different Symptoms

Many heart or vascular conditions present differently in women than men. Women may experience symptoms that seem unrelated to heart disease and are often dismissed as being related to stress, anxiety or age. For example, when men have a heart attack they often have chest pain, while women are more likely to experience:

• Pressure or squeezing in the chest
• Pain in the jaw, neck, shoulders or back
• Unusual fatigue
• Sudden sweating (cold or clammy feeling)
• Shortness of breath (with or without chest discomfort)
• Dizziness
• Nausea, indigestion or abdominal pain
• Numbness in hands or fingers

Biological Differences

Biologically, women generally have smaller hearts and blood vessels, with thinner heart chamber walls and finer arteries, so heart or vascular disease may develop differently.

Reproductive Risk Factors

Health conditions specific to women can increase the risk for heart or vascular disease. These include:

• Early (before age 10) or late (after age 15) first menstrual period.
• Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), formerly called polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
• Pregnancy-related diabetes, hypertension or preeclampsia.
• Pregnancy-associated cardiomyopathy and peripartum cardiomyopathy.
• Pregnancy-associated spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD).
• Preterm delivery.
• Premature menopause (before age 45).
• Pregnancy, some forms of birth control, and oral hormone therapy for menopause management.

Chronic Inflammation

Women have a greater lifetime risk for developing heart or vascular disease if they have a health condition that produces slow, long-term inflammation in the body. Also, women are up to four times more likely to develop an autoimmune disease than men.

These include:

• Lupus
• Psoriasis
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease
• Takayasu or giant cell arteritis

Cancer Treatments

While chemotherapy or radiation can support a cure for Hodgkin’s lymphoma or breast cancer, sometimes these treatments may lead to heart or vascular dysfunction in women, either during treatment or years later.