Heart Disease – Women’s Biggest Killer

It is widely believed that cancer is the biggest killer of women; however it is actually heart disease that kills more women. This has been confirmed by figures released by the British Cardiovascular Society (BCS) at a conference in Glasgow last week.

According to these figures, women in the UK are at four times more risk of dying from cardiovascular disease (CVD) than from breast cancer. Presenting these findings, the BCS stressed the need to pay more attention to this greatest danger to women’s health.

Heart and circulatory disease killed more than 11,000 women in Scotland alone in 2004; 3000 more than all cancers combined. The number of deaths from breast cancer – 1082 in total for both men and women – is significantly lower.

“The incidence of heart disease in women is increasing as it’s dropping in men,” said Ray Higginson, Senior Lecturer in Critical Care at Glamorgan University. “Even so, the perception remains that it’s a male killer.”

The seriousness of heart disease in women is not fully recognised. This lack of recognition often leads to issues in diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation received by women with heart disease. Often it is not as effective as that received by men with cardiac problems.

Heart disease affects women differently than men and this is believed to be one of the reasons behind diagnosis and treatment being slow for them. Overworked, middle-aged men usually suffer from heart disease. Women however are protected to a certain extent by hormones and generally face trouble only after menopause.

In Britain, the proportion of deaths due to heart disease is roughly equal for men and women – 37% and 36% respectively; however only a quarter of clinical research involves women.

A series of recommendations are due to be issued by a working group of the BCS next week. These recommendations form part of a wider European Heart Health Charter that is aimed at reducing the rate of CVD in Europe.

The new recommendations include the quick referral of women with suspected heart disease to specialist cardiologists. The setting up of a national registry of all female cardiac patients and appropriate representation in clinical trials is also covered in the recommendations.

“There needs to be more done across the board,” said Ben McKendrick, Policy and Public Affairs manager of the British Heart Foundation, Scotland. “We would hope more partners like the NHS and Scottish Executive will get involved to tackle the problem.”

Consultant cardiologist Dr. Jane Flint, who chaired the working group, laid emphasis on the need for young women to be aware of the danger to their health in the recommendations. “Young women are smoking more, drinking more, are not as physically active and are more stressed,” she said. “They are increasing their risk.”

The recommendations encourage patients who have already had a heart attack to go through rehabilitation treatment including sessions of physical exercise. Many women find the sessions too difficult and drop out early; this is because the sessions are geared toward male fitness.

“Often women have more psychological needs than men following a heart attack,” said Higginson. “Women are carers of everyone else and put other people’s needs before their own. Rehabilitation is just designed to get a man back to work and doesn’t deal with these issues.”

There have been several complaints that the message about the importance of raising awareness about women’s heart disease is just not getting through. It has also been suggested that support of popular entertainment should be sought by introducing women’s heart issues to soap operas and medical dramas.

“We need more heart disease in women in entertainment programmes,” said Higginson. “We need a woman to come into Casualty with chest pain.”

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