This is why girls are identified with coronary heart assaults later | EUROtoday

As of: February 11, 2026 10:55 a.m

In share phrases, extra girls than males die from a coronary heart assault. One motive for that is {that a} coronary heart assault in girls is usually identified later – whether it is acknowledged as such in any respect.

The traditional picture of a coronary heart assault: a person clutching his chest together with his face contorted in ache. The ache radiates into the left arm – you hear that repeatedly. This additionally applies to many affected males. They nonetheless make up nearly all of coronary heart assaults, particularly as much as age 75.

According to the German Heart Foundation, a complete of round 44,000 folks in Germany died of a coronary heart assault final yr. Even if this quantity has basically improved: in share phrases, extra girls than males die of a coronary heart assault. Because it’s typically solely identified later, whether it is even acknowledged as such.

Gender variations within the signs

In girls, the signs are sometimes much less particular: In addition to again ache, nausea and ache within the higher stomach, a coronary heart assault in girls is usually noticeable by weak spot and diminished resilience. Because the signs are so totally different from the traditional ones and will point out many issues, many ladies typically do not instantly consider a coronary heart assault.

Studies present: They come to the emergency room later than males. And though gender variations at the moment are identified, girls obtain the proper analysis much less typically and later. Which results in increased share loss of life charges than for males – and subsequent injury to the guts.

Risk elements additionally differ

While males’s principal considerations embrace hypertension and smoking, the danger elements for girls are extra numerous. High blood strain can also be one of many principal elements for them, however kind 2 diabetes, stress and autoimmune ailments additionally play a task.

77 p.c of sufferers with hypertension are girls after the menopause, says coronary heart surgeon and head of the ladies’s coronary heart session Sandra Eifert from the Heart Center on the University of Leipzig. “High blood pressure is often overlooked or only recognized later.” High blood strain can also be associated to the dearth of estrogen. Estrogen has a vascular protecting operate. If it’s misplaced, the danger of arteriosclerosis may enhance, says Eifert. That’s why girls undergo a coronary heart assault on common about ten years later than males.

The diagnostics

While modifications within the coronary heart and its operate will be seen in males, they aren’t as simple to see in girls. Laboratory parameters and ECG are much less noticeable in girls. Imaging procedures, resembling an ultrasound of the guts, work higher.

In scientific comparability work, researchers have discovered that that is partly as a result of girls’s hearts are smaller and fewer elastic than males’s hearts. The bigger vessels in males are narrowed and the smaller vessels in girls are narrowed.

This is what girls can do for his or her hearts

The following applies to each genders: train is extraordinarily essential to strengthen the guts and blood vessels. Diet performs a task, a Mediterranean weight loss plan with wholesome fat, a number of greens, legumes and infrequently some fish contributes to common well being, but in addition to coronary heart well being. In addition, you must keep away from an excessive amount of salt, as this damages the blood vessels, in line with the advice of the German Heart Foundation.

Good stress administration is especially essential for girls. Anger and stress are significantly damaging to girls’s hearts. And getting sufficient sleep with good high quality sleep can also be essential. Important restore and regeneration processes happen throughout sleep. If that is disturbed, it places the physique underneath stress – and stress in flip causes blood strain to rise.