Journalism of Courage
ANURADHA MASCARENHAS
Chest pain is recognised as a symptom of heart trouble,but one of five women aged under 55 years who have had a heart attack do not experience this symptom,a study led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre has found.
The reality is that chest pain,age and gender are no longer the definers of a heart attack. Our study shows that young people and women who come into the emergency without chest pain,but other telltale ACS symptoms such as weakness,shortness of breath and/or rapid heartbeats,are in crisis. We need to be able to recognise this and adapt to new standard assessments in previously unrecognised groups such as young women, Nadia Khan,associate professor of Medicine,UBC,told The Indian Express in an email.
We need to move away from the image of an older man clutching his chest,when we think about acute coronary syndrome ACS the umbrella term referring to heart attacks and angina,she said. Women under 55 are more likely to have their ACS misdiagnosed in the ER than men,and they have higher risk of death,she said.
Khan and her colleagues evaluated over 1,000 young patients who were hospitalised for ACS. Their findings showed that women were less likely to experience chest pain when compared with men and that the absence of this pain did not correlate with less severe heart attacks. Patients without chest pain had fewer symptoms overall but their ACS was not less severe. The diagnosis of ACS,therefore,depended on detailed cardiological assessments.
While the research was funded from the Heart and Stroke Foundation and Canadian Institutes of Health Research,Khan and colleagues are also doing a study looking at South Asian men and women.
Previous studies have shown that South Asian women are at risk of heart disease. In our study,many of the women were obese,smokers,had high blood pressure. Some had diabetes. There is hardly any research on young women. We found that the most common symptom for heart attacks was still chest pain in both young men and women under 55, Khan said.
Professor K Srinath Reddy,President of the World Heart Federation,said: Women must realise that they may not have the typical symptoms that lead to a heart attack. They need to be extra careful if they have risk factors like high blood pressure and diabetes.
World Heart Day: Sept 29
World Heart Day was created by the World Heart Federation in 2000 to inform people that heart disease and stroke are the world8217;s leading causes of death,claiming 17.3 million lives a year.
On September 29 each year,the federation aims to drive action to educate people that by controlling risk factors such as tobacco use,at least 80 per cent of premature deaths from heart disease can be avoided.
Theme for this years World Heart Day,Take the road to a healthy heart,will focus on the life-course approach to the prevention and control of cardiovascular diseases.
Unless people are aware and action is taken to enable heart-healthy living,by 2030,CVD will be responsible for 23.6 million deaths each year.
