The top three symptoms of heart attacks in both women and men are chest pain, sweating and shortness of breath, reports a study by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).
"Symptoms of heart attacks are often labeled as 'typical' in men and 'atypical' in women," says study author Dr Annemarijn de Boer of the University Medical Center Utrecht. “But our study shows that while the symptoms may differ between the sexes, there are also many similarities.”
Whatever your gender, if you're experiencing heart attack symptoms, don't delay. Call emergency services immediately.
Symptom recognition is crucial to enable rapid, life-saving treatment for people who have had a heart attack. Some previous studies report gender differences in symptoms, while others report shared symptoms.
This study collected the highest quality studies – 27 in total – from the past two decades describing symptoms in patients with confirmed acute coronary syndrome (heart attack or unstable angina).
In addition to sharing the three most common symptoms, the majority of men and women with acute coronary syndrome had chest pain:79% of men and 74% of women.
Significant differences in symptom presentation between women and men were also reported. Compared to men, women were more than twice as likely to experience pain between the shoulder blades, 64% more likely to have nausea or vomiting, and 34% more likely to have shortness of breath. While chest pain and sweating were the most common symptoms in both women and men, they were less common in women, who were 30% less likely to experience chest pain and 26% less likely to sweat compared to men. /P>
The study did not examine the reasons why there are some variations in the presentation of symptoms between women and men, but Dr. de Boer said:“Previous research has shown gender differences in how heart attacks occur in the body, but it is uncertain how or if this relates to symptom presentation. The cause of symptom differences between the sexes deserves further investigation. “
