More women suffer from heart disease than men; men get better treatment

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Although women suffer from coronary heart disease more than men, they do not get as good treatment.
      Women seek treatment more readily than men do, but the disease is often not diagnosed early enough, because the symptoms are more varied. Women’s cardiac symptoms are often explained as stomach ailments, or stress.
      Many women experience negative attitudes from medical personnel, if no cause for the symptoms is found.
      "I was told that I am wasting doctors’ valuable time, or that it’s just nerves", wrote one woman suffering from coronary disease in an essay contest arranged by the Finnish Heart Association. The essays have been compiled into a book under the title Elämää sepelvaltimotaudin kanssa ("Living with Coronary Disease").
     
Heart disease is still seen to be primarily a men’s disease, even though women used 60 percent of hospital days devoted to heart disease patients in 2000. The misconception lives among both health care professionals, and women themselves.
      "Half of women believe that they could die of breast cancer, but only three to four percent actually do. Few believe that they will die of coronary disease, but it is the most common cause of death among women", explains Sinikka Pohjola-Sintonen, a doctor at the Helsinki University Central Hospital.
     
Women get heart disease later in life than men do. Only one in five coronary patients under the age of 65 are women, but after that, the ratio shifts.
      The higher age of the patients partly explains why it is so difficult to diagnose the disease. Older patients get less exercise, and they suffer from other diseases which can overshadow heart symptoms.
      With older women, the symptoms are often more vague. The most typical - chest pain - is often completely missing.
      "Heart disease takes more forms, and it can be confused with many other diseases", notes Hannu Vanhanen, head physician at the Finnish Heart Association.
      Diagnosis is often a problem with women, as the most common methods do not yield perfect results. For instance, a tolerance test using a stationary bicycle can bring false positive findings. On the other hand, not all patients are able to pedal long enough for a diagnosis.
      Even after the disease is diagnosed, women are often in an unequal position. Women are given cholesterol-lowering medicines less frequently than men. Not all women take daily doses of aspirin, which protect women against strokes.
      Women also have more risk factors that could lead to heart disease than men do.
     
After menopause, women’s blood pressure easily rises, which triples the danger of getting heart disease.
      Many also gain weight. "Gaining weight increases insulin resistance and adult type diabetes, increases the danger of women’s heart disease, and weakens prognoses", Pohjola-Sintonen explains.
      "Keeping weight under control is even more important for women than for men."
      Experts are also worried about smoking among young women, which is more common than among young men. Just 3 - 5 cigarettes a day increases the danger of a women to die of a heart attack, and for those smoking 15 cigarettes, the risk is 5-10 times as high as it is for a nonsmoker.


Links:
  Finnish Heart Association

Helsingin Sanomat