Mayo Clinic Women's HealthSource (Special Report) - March 2003

Tuesday, March 18, 2003

What Women Don't Know About Heart Disease Can Be Deadly

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - What's the number one disease that kills women? If you said breast cancer, you're not even close. It's heart disease, a deadly disease that takes the lives of about 375,000 American women each year, compared with about 41,500 women who die from breast cancer. Yet less than one-third of women are aware of this, according to a special report on heart disease in the March issue of Mayo Clinic Women's HealthSource.

Coronary artery disease develops slowly and silently; 63 percent of women who die suddenly from it had no previous symptoms.

The classic heart-attack symptoms are sudden and intense chest pain, tightness in the chest, pain that radiates down the left arm and shortness of breath. But other, less-common symptoms occur in women. One survey found that 90 percent of women were unaware of these lesser-known symptoms that include:

• Pain that radiates into the jaw
• Pain in one or both arms
• Discomfort similar to indigestion
• Abdominal pain, upper back or neck pain
• Sudden sweating, nausea or lightheadedness

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