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Top risk factors for heart disease in women

By Joelle Klein 

A whopping 90% of women have one or more risk factors of heart disease or stroke, and women have a higher lifetime risk of stroke than men. Despite these chilling odds, nearly half of women aren’t even aware of their increased risk, which is dangerous. “If you don’t know that you’re at risk, you won’t pay attention to symptoms or risk factors. Knowledge is powerful,” says Annabelle Santos Volgman, MD, medical director for the Rush Heart Center for Women in Chicago, IL. 

The good news? By increasing your awareness, learning the risk factors and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, you can put up a fight against heart disease — and even prevent it.

Women’s Special Risks

The five biggest risk factors for heart disease — high blood pressure, high LDL (bad) cholesterol, family history of heart disease, smoking, and diabetes — are the same in both women and men. Because of their increased risk for high blood pressure, African-Americans of either gender are at higher risk for developing heart disease than other ethnic groups. But women have some additional and unique risk factors to be aware of:

Birth control. Some birth control pills may increase a woman’s risk for developing high blood pressure. Add smoking to the mix and her risk of stroke and heart attack may go up, too, especially if she’s overweight. 

Age. Men are more likely than women to have their first heart attack under the age of 50, even if they’re relatively healthy, whereas women tend to suffer heart attacks after 50 (post menopause). Because this first heart attack can come 10 years later than it does for men, other health complications that come with aging, like a weaker immune system, can affect women’s survival rates, says Sheila Sahni, MD, chief cardiology fellow at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Heart disease also affects women differently because they tend to have blockages not only in their main arteries, but also in the smaller arteries that supply blood to the heart (known as small vessel heart disease or microvascular disease).

Now that you’ve learned your risk, familiarize yourself with the warning signs of heart disease — and how you can prevent it.

Published on June 17, 2016.

Joelle Klein is a Denver-based freelance health and lifestyle writer.