HEART HEALTH
Discover the signs and symptoms to watch out for when it comes to heart health, plus essential lifestyle adjustments you can make today.
Sending a romantic Valentine’s card is meant to make a lover’s heart skip a beat, but when did you last think about your own heart health? Heart problems are often presumed to mainly affect older men – meaning women’s heart health concerns can be dismissed, resulting in a gender gap in heart care with deadly consequences.
In fact, coronary heart disease kills more than twice as many women as breast cancer in the UK every year. Plus, it was the single biggest killer of women worldwide in 2019, according to the British Heart Foundation, whose Heart Health Awareness campaign this February (bhf.org.uk/heartmonth) coincides neatly with the month of love.
Each year more than 30,000 women are admitted to hospital due to a heart attack. Yet women are 50 per cent more likely than men to receive the w rong initial diagnosis for a heart attack, which increases the risk of death by 70 per cent. Around 8,000 women’s lives were needlessly lost because they didn’t receive the same standard of heart attack care as men, over a decade† .
New research reveals concerning inequalities in NHS heart care, showing that women are less likely to receive crucial tests and treatments to prevent future heart attacks. Led by a team at the University of Leeds, the research focused on heart attacks, heart failure, atrial fibrillation and aortic stenosis as these conditions lead to significant pressure on the NHS. The review found women are less likely to receive the treatment recommended in clinical guidelines if they have a heart attack or are diagnosed with heart failure. For example, after a severe type of heart attack, women were around a third less likely than men to be given a coronary angiogram – a procedure to look for narrowing or blockages in the heart’s blood vessels. Women were also less likely to be prescribed preventative treatments, such as statins, betablockers or antiplatelets that can prevent future heart attacks.
LACK OF AWARENESS
But what’s the cause of this gender gap in heart care? ‘Underlying this inequality is a common misperception that coronary heart disease and heart attack is a man’s disease. The lack of awareness of risk for women could mean they are less likely to recognise they are having a heart attack. Women typically arrive at hospital later than men when having a heart attack, contributing to delays in treatment. On top of this, a woman is 50 per c
