We know that stress, anxiety and depression certainly aren’t good for our mental health, but it turns out that, in women especially, it’s far more detrimental to our physical health than we once thought.
Heart attacks are the most common cause of death for women – cardiovascular disease lies behind 1 in 3 women’s deaths every year – and new studies show that stress is a huge contributing factor.
As well as this, a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, says that women are much more likely to die in the year after a heart attack than a man in the same position.
Women – particularly those who are under 50 and have no other history of heart disease – are the most vulnerable to experience a particular type of heart attack named ‘spontaneous coronary artery dissection’.
This heart attack is chronically misdiagnosed, not only because the symptoms are unusual, but because people don’t usually believe that young, healthy women can have heart attacks.
The Swedish study used the data of 180,368 patients, who suffered a heart attack from 2003 to 2013, and showed that women were far less likely to get the follow-up treatment they needed than men were, resulting in women being three times more likely to die in the 12 months following the heart attack.
The reasoning behind these startling statistics seems to be misdiagnosis. In women, cardiac attack symptoms can include things like nausea, abdominal pain, fatigue, and cold sweats, and don’t necessarily have to include pain in the chest.
The take away? Get any symptoms checked immediately and don’t settle for no as an answer.
Find out more about warning signs and symptoms here.
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