Heart Disease and Why Women Are Getting the Wrong Diagnosis
Published Mar 18, 2010
A recent study has demonstrated a new disparity between healthcare for women and men: Women are more likely than men to receive incorrect guidance about appropriate cholesterol targets by their primary care physicians. Doctors regularly underestimate women’s risk of heart disease, and don’t educate/encourage/treat women adequately enough to help them reach desirable cholesterol levels.
If you’ve been reading the newspaper or tuning into radio or TV news shows over the past few years, you may already know some important (and discouraging) facts about women and heart disease:
- It’s the number-one killer of women in the United States
- While the death rate for heart disease in men has dropped slowly but surely over the past 25 years (down more than 17 percent), it’s only dipped 2.5 percent in women
- Women who have heart attacks don’t get the recommended treatments at the same rate as men who have heart attacks
- Women are twice as likely as men to die within a month of having a heart attack
- More women than men are likely to die within a year of having a heart attack; only 62 percent of women survive a first heart attack, compared to 75 percent of men
- Women with symptoms of heart disease are often misdiagnosed with stress or anxiety
So if you’re a woman, what can you do about this?
Start by educating yourself. Do you know the difference between good (HDL) cholesterol and bad (LDL) cholesterol? (For a quick refresher, check out the Cholesterol Glossary on EverydayHealth.com) Do you know your own cholesterol levels? Do you know all your other heart disease risk factors? Here’s some basic cholesterol information to help you get started.
Point one: LDL is the bad player – this is the sticky, waxy stuff that clogs and narrows arteries, and kicks off some of the chemical interactions that can result in heart disease. Most people should have an LDL below 130 mg/dL. But if you’ve got other risk factors for heart disease (and we’ll cover those in a minute), you should aim for LDL less than 100 mg/dL. And if you’ve at very high risk for heart disease, go for an LDL less than 70 mg/dL.
Point two: HDL is the good guy – HDL-cholesterol can actually help protect your blood vessels. Aim for 60 mg/dL or more. Your HDL is considered a risk factor if you’ve got 50 mg/dL or less (women) or 40 mg/dL or less (men).
Point three: Know your other heart disease risk factors. To begin with, if you’ve already had a heart attack, if you have diabetes, or if you know that you have carotid or peripheral vascular disease, then you are already bumped up to the category of very high risk of heart disease. You’re also at very high risk if you have two or more of these risk factors:
- You’re a smoker
- You have high blood pressure
- You have low HDL
- You have close family members who had heart disease at an early age (father, brother, son under age 55; mother, sister, daughter underdaughter under age 65)
- You’re a woman older than 55 (or a man older than 45)
- You’re overweight or obese
- You don’t exercise regularly
- You have elevated lipoprotein (a)
Now that you know that you can’t necessarily rely on your doctor to educate you about high cholesterol, make sure you’re knowledgeable. Ask your doctor how often to get your cholesterol checked; whether you need to visit with a dietician to find out about dietary methods of controlling cholesterol and/or attaining and maintaining a healthy weight; whether you need to take medication to lower LDL or raise HDL; how to quit smoking; and how to jump-start a safe and healthy exercise program.