But husbands don't usually prompt their wives to go to the doctor. Husbands often don't believe that their wives have heart disease. A lot of women have said, 'My chest pain can't be a heart attack because men have heart attacks,' Magness says. Women are more likely to attribute the pain to the pepperoni pizza they ate last night. While it's true that women are more likely in general to seek regular medical care and to practice preventive care, they are not as conditioned as men to respond to the symptoms of heart attack.
Women have another risk-increasing factor as well.
Female diabetics have a sevenfold increase in the risk of heart disease compared to other women, while a man's risk increases threefold. In fact, some type of cardiovascular disease claims the lives of more than 80 percent of people who have diabetes. Unfortunately, women are also twice as likely to die in the first few weeks after a heart attack than men. And they more often suffer complications from heart attack treatments, coronary angioplasty and bypass surgery than their male counterparts-due to their smaller body size, smaller artery size and the fact that they're likely to be about 10 years older when they have such procedures performed. Besides menopause, the top risk factors for heart disease for women are the same as those for men, according to Doris E. Tummillo, M.D., P.C., a cardiologist at University Hospital in Augusta, Georgia- smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, family history, sedentary lifestyle, stress, diabetes and being overweight.