Heart attacks are considered a leading cause of death among women in the United Kingdom.
It kills around 77 British women each day and, according to the British Heart Foundation, women are around 50% more likely to have symptoms of the coronary issues.
However, these can often be dismissed as heartburn, anxiety, or a “funny turn”. Common symptoms include chest pain and fatigue, but there is one lesser-known sign experts say is often ignored, and can appear a month before a heart attack occurs, reports the Mirror.
According to journal Circulation, indigestion was a common symptom experienced by women in the month before a cardian event.
Around 39% of the cohort reported the uncomfortable sensation before their heart attack, but indigestion was not common during the heart attack itself. Indigestion can be pain or discomfort in your upper abdomen (dyspepsia) or burning pain behind the breastbone (heartburn), says the NHS.
The study wanted to accurately identify the women’s coronary heart disease symptoms in order to develop an understanding of the warning signs. The researchers said: “The current description of ‘typical’ cardiac symptoms is based primarily on the experience of white, middle-aged men.”
But this “contributes to misunderstandings in clinicians and lay individuals, leads to inaccurate diagnosis, and causes women to delay seeking treatment”. They added that in earlier research, they found that between 85 to 90% of women reported several different symptoms in the period leading up to a heart attack.
The common symptoms among women were:
Unusual fatigue (71%)
Sleep disturbance (48%)
Shortness of breath (42%)
Indigestion (39%)
Anxiety (36%)
During a heart attack, women experienced:
Shortness of breath (58%)
Weakness (55%)
Unusual fatigue (43%)
Cold sweat (39%)
Dizziness (39%)
Dr Nancy K. Sweitzer came up with a list of integral factors a person needs to implement into their lives to reduce their risk of the potentially life-threatening health condition. She came up with these five lifestyle factors after citing a similar study from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute.
A study of around 20,000 women aged between 45 and 79 were investigated for a total of 11 years. Lifestyle changes and heart condition risks were analysed. Dr Sweitzer says habits to stop to significantly reduce your risk of a heart attack include:
Quit smoking for a 36% risk reduction
Eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, reduced-fat dairy, whole grains and fish for a 18% reduction
12% reduction for maintaining a waistline of 37 inches or less for men or less than 35 inches for women
11% reduction for drinking fewer than two alcoholic drinks per day
3% reduction for moderate daily and weekly exercise routines
“It can be overwhelming if people feel they need to make all of these changes at once,” added Dr Sweitzer. “Everyone could look at where they can make the biggest impact on their risk reduction and start with one small change.”
