Heart Attack in Women

Do women have to worry about having a heart attack?

Yes. Heart disease, the cause of most heart attacks, is the #1 killer of both men and women in the US. ¹⁹ About 3 million US women have had a heart attack.²⁰ In 2004, 345,000 women suffered a new or recurrent heart attack.²⁰ However, women develop heart disease later than men due to the protective effects of female hormones before menopause. For women, the average age of first heart attack is 70 years, ²¹ about 5 years older than the average for men (66 years).

Even though heart disease is more common in older women, more than 9,000 US women under 45 years of age suffer a heart attack every year. Black women develop heart disease at an earlier age than women of other races.

Are women more likely to die after a heart attack than men?

It depends. Women are more likely to die in the hospital and in the 30 days following a heart attack than men. This is largely because women are older and sicker than men by the time they have a heart attack. In the long run (from 6 months to 10 years after a heart attack), men and women are just as likely to survive their heart attacks.^23-27 Older women (over age 75) generally do better than men of the same age and are less likely than men to die after a heart attack.^{24, 28}

Heart attacks are less common in younger women (under age 50), but when they do occur, younger women are at a much higher risk of dying in the hospital than younger men. Studies have found that after a heart attack, women under age 50 are twice as likely to die in the hospital than men of the same age.^{24, 28} The reasons for this are not fully understood.

The risk of dying from a heart attack for both men and women has fallen significantly in recent years as treatments have improved. In 2004, 75,000 women died from a heart attack, which is equal to about 2.5% of all women living with a heart attack in their past.²⁰ Improved treatments have lowered death rates and women in particular have benefited; most recent studies have found that the gender difference often, but not always, disappears once you account for the fact that women who have heart attacks are usually older and sicker than men.

References

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