It is a myth that only those who feel severe chest pain, preferably accompanied by tingling in the left arm, are having a heart attack. These symptoms may be typical for most men, but it is different for women.
Only a minority of them have these complaints when suffering a heart attack. For seven out of 10 women, a heart attack raises other flags: severe nausea is one of them.
What happens
Pain is common, but can be confused with a bad back, indigestion or even physical overload after a day of work.
The painful contraction of the muscles between the shoulder blades, close to the shoulder blades, passes for mere tension.
Because of the symptoms that are so different from those we would associate with a male heart attack, it remains unnoticed.
The time in which the heart attack remains ignored, exceeding the ideal time of two hours for someone to be helped and have a good chance of recovering, is usually fatal.
Biological differences
From the outside, apart from the size, the heart muscle looks the same. However, the way hormones affect the endothelium, the inner layer of vessels, is different.
The endothelium causes angina — the name given to chest pain during a heart attack, caused by decreased blood flow to the heart — to be triggered by small vessels surrounding the affected area. These vessels then begin to suffer a series of microspasms. This is when a diffuse, little-understood malaise appears.
Social differences
Experts argue that women were not trained to think about their own hearts, since until recently, heart attacks were commonly associated with a male event.
However, according to the Ministry of Health, in Brazil heart disease already kills more women over 50 than breast and uterine cancer combined.
One fifth of the Brazilian female population is at risk of suffering a heart attack. The World Health Organization reinforces: the heart is what kills 1/3 of women around the planet.
Hormonal and emotional factors
After menopause, a woman’s chance of having a heart attack is the same as a man’s. However, in their case, disregard for symptoms represents 50% of deaths when compared to men.
Among the risk factors, depression should be highlighted. After all, it leads to changes in sleep and irritability, factors that unbalance the heart rate. Cortisol, in turn, alters the functioning of the endothelium. From then on, the blood tends to form more clots.
It is not new that depression is considered one of the main triggers of a heart attack. And it is worth mentioning that, according to the WHO, depressive conditions are twice as common in women.
Source: Otavio Gebara, postgraduate cardiologist at Harvard Medical School. Former coordinator of the Guideline for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases in Women, of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology
*With article published on 03/15/2018
