Women Can Take Control of Cardiac Disease

Patricia Dolhun, M.D., Obstetrics and Gynecology Medical Director, Women's Cardiac Program

Posted: Jan. 1, 2007

It is never too early or too late for any woman to think about heart disease, her risk of getting it and what she can do to prevent it. With baby boomers now entering their sixties, women are more aware than ever about the risk of contracting heart disease and how deadly it can be. What they need to know now is how to take control of the situation so the disease can be managed, cured or even prevented in a timely manner.

Because women typically do not develop heart disease until much later in life than men, traditional heart care has been very male-focused. However, recent research has shown that women experience heart disease symptoms and respond to treatments much differently than men. This relatively recent information has become the basis for the medical community to begin looking at heart disease risk factors and treatments in a whole new way for women. It’s also the basis for Columbia St. Mary’s Women’s Cardiac Program which focuses on early diagnosis and specialized care for women with heart disease.

Women’s symptoms

The typical symptoms most people think of when we talk about a heart attack – chest pain, arm numbness, shortness of breath – actually occur in only about 30 percent of women experiencing a heart attack. In reality, a woman’s symptoms are often much more subtle and can actually be experienced for prolonged periods of time – sometimes up to a month – before she realizes she is actually having heart trouble.

For women, severe fatigue, anxiety, indigestion and severe sleep disturbances are often signs of heart disease. If any woman experiences the onset of these symptoms and already has other known risk factors and/or a family history of heart disease, she should seek medical attention right away.

In the past, these symptoms were typically explained away as stress or hormone related, by both the patient and the doctor. Today, however, physicians in general are much more likely to consider heart disease sooner if a woman is already predisposed to it. And, of course, early detection almost always leads to better treatment and better cure rates.

Risk factors

The good news is that there are only three risk factors for heart disease that are not modifiable, which means the majority of women can prevent heart disease all together by taking certain measures.

A woman’s age, family history of heart health and premature menopause (menopause onset under age 40) are all risk factors for contracting heart disease that unfortunately we cannot control. However, most heart disease occurs in women who have risk factors that are completely within their ability to change. Diabetes, left unchecked, is one of the biggest indicators of future heart disease, along with smoking, excess weight (meaning a waist size of over 35 inches), lack of exercise, high cholesterol, hypertension and excessive stress. Every woman can work with her family doctor to help manage these issues and lower her risk of heart disease.

Although medication and surgical interventions are the typical treatment routes for both men and women suffering with heart disease, our ability to detect the disease earlier has improved tremendously over the past few years. With the advent of the high tech CT scanners, we can now view images of the entire heart, including its blood vessels, to look for blockages before they cause a heart attack. These new scanners also pick up soft plaque, as opposed to only hard plaque, which means we can prevent blockages earlier and easier, blockages that in the past had been harder to detect.

I believe research will continue to zero in on female-specific heart disease, including causes and treatment options designed specifically for women. Women have a unique variation of heart disease as compared to men and medically we are now in a position to tailor our approach to heart disease for the best possible outcome.

Patricia Dolhun, M.D., OB/GYN
Medical Directory, Women’s Cardiac Program
Columbia St. Mary’s
414-326-1745

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