They suddenly grab their chest, yell out in pain and drop to the ground – it's a classic routine.
But if you think about who exactly all those heart attack victims were, you'll quickly see that the vast majority, if not all of them, were male.
There are a couple of reasons for that.
One is that if a woman was to have a heart attack on screen, you'd have to have her top ripped open and that might not be welcome on pre-watershed TV.
But the other is that the signs of heart attack in women are a lot less obvious.
We tend to associate men with heart attacks, but they happen to both sexes.
And sexism in cardiovascular research is meaning that more women are dying from heart attacks, says Dr Glen Pyle from the University of Guelph.
He claims that treatment guidelines for heart attacks are based on data collected primarily from men, and a result, "women are also less likely to receive recommended therapies, interventions and rehabilitation opportunities".
He writes for The Conversation…
One of the most common cardiovascular conditions is ischemic heart disease, which can lead to heart attacks.
Heart attacks occur when blood vessels serving the heart are blocked, and in most cases, that's caused by a build-up of fatty plaques in the coronary arteries.
However, more than 50 per cent of women with ischemic heart disease don’t have blocked coronary arteries.
The condition tends to be caused in women whn smaller blood vessels of the hard become damaged.
Women have higher rates of death compared to men
Most heart attacks aren’t sudden, painful events that cause victims to collapse to the ground.
Pain may be gradual and mistaken for indigestion or a muscle ache.
Although chest pain is the most common symptom for both sexes, women are more likely to present without pain or have uncharacteristic symptoms including fatigue or discomfort in the neck, jaw and back.
The failure to quickly recognize atypical symptoms can delay treatment and cause more heart damage
Women often don't receive urgent medical attention
Symptoms of heart attack in women
These are the signs every woman needs to know.
- Chest pain or discomfort – the most recognised symptom of a heart attack though not always present
- Pain radiating to the arms, neck, jaw, stomach and back can all be symptoms of a heart attack
- You may experience pain in just one or all of these places; for some people the pain is severe but for others just uncomfortable
- A feeling of indigestion or reflux type pain – this is often ignored in the hope that it will pass
- Feeling sick, sweaty, breathless or lightheaded with associated chest pain or discomfort
- A general feeling of being unwell or lethargic can also be an indicator of a heart attack when accompanied by chest pain or discomfort
A review of research from 1960 to 2008 cites 11 studies which found women took longer to seek care and seven which found no sex differences.
While most studies find that women who have heart attacks take longer than men to obtain medical care, these differences are relatively small.
Clinical guidelines set checkpoints for tests and treatments that are often missed in women.
The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada found that women were less likely than men to receive an electrocardiogram — a test to detect heart attacks — within the recommended 10 minutes after arriving in the emergency department.
Fewer women get cardiac rehab
Women who have a heart attack are less likely to receive recommended therapies.
Interventions like cardiac catheterization and bypass surgery are less common in women.
At discharge, women are less likely to receive prescriptions despite evidence that mortality is reduced when drug guidelines are followed.
Long-term treatment for heart attack patients includes cardiac rehabilitation. These services are underused in general, but by women in particular.
Women are less likely to be referred to cardiac rehabilitation by their physician.
Even when referred, women are less likely to adhere to the program and more likely to withdraw before completion.
Sexism in heart research
Treatment guidelines are based on data collected primarily from men.
A 2016 statement from the American Heart Association notes that recommended heart attack treatments benefit women, but definitive data on sex differences in treatment efficacy are lacking.
Investment in basic research that identifies sex-differences in health and disease are essential for devising more effective, sex-specific therapies.
That also means that there needs to be more women involved in clinical trials and research.
The bottom line is that until the glass ceiling of sexism in cardiovascular research is broken, women will continue to suffer the consequences.
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