Women and Heart Disease

Her at Heart is a Scientific Initiative to raise awareness amongst women of all ages, general public and healthcare professionals on the under-recognition of cardiovascular disease amongst women.

The Her at Heart Scientific Initiative was founded by Dr Ghada Mikhail in 2006. Dr Ghada Mikhail is a Consultant Cardiologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. She has organised and chaired several Symposia on Cardiovascular Disease in Women at national and international meetings. She was previously research co-chair of the US SCAI WIN (Women in Innovations) initiative and is currently board member of the Euro-PCR EAPCI group. She is also committee member of All-Parliamentry Group on Women’s Heath and has helped formulate a document on Cardiovascular Disease in Women.

Her at Heart main objectives are:

  To increase awareness amongst the general public and healthcare professionals on the extent of cardiovascular disease in women.

  To address the issues of under-diagnosis, under-treatment and under-representation of women in research trials.

  To improve the management and quality of care in women with cardiovascular disease.

 

Coronary heart disease is the most common cause of death in the UK. Heart and circulatory diseases cause approximately 170,000 deaths each year. Approximately one in twelve women die from coronary heart disease compared to one in seven men. Coronary heart disease kills more than twice as many women in the UK as breast cancer.

British Heart Foundation

There are a number of risk factors which can increase the likelihood of developing heart disease. These include, smoking, high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, family history of heart disease and lack of exercise. Post menopausal women also have a higher risk of developing heart disease compared to pre menopausal women. It is important that women attempt to modify their risk factors early in life in order to reduce the risk of developing heart disease.

Women are more likely to present with atypical symptoms compared to men. As well as chest pain, women can present with shortness of breath, neck and jaw pain, upper back pain, abdominal pain, nausea and fatigue. In addition, because of decreased awareness, women are still less likely to seek medical help when they have symptoms.

There is no doubt that better education and awareness as well as more aggressive control of risk factors is desperately needed to tackle this potentially fatal disease.