Heart disease is the leading killer of\u00a0Australian women, yet only 28 per cent of women know this.<\/p>\n
One Australian woman died of heart disease every hour in 2015, three times the number that died of breast cancer.<\/p>\n
This imbalance is what has led Dr Linda Worrall-Carter, who has a PhD in nursing, to change tack after 15 years researching\u00a0heart disease at Melbourne\u2019s St Vincent\u2019s hospital, to establish Her Heart. The not-for-profit\u00a0organisation aims to raise awareness about the prevalence, risk factors and symptoms of heart disease in women.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a number of women say to me \u2018How do we not know that heart disease is our biggest killer?\u2019,\u201d Dr Worrall-Carter says.\u00a0\u201cAnd I thought it was almost unethical to keep doing research when the people who the research affects aren\u2019t recognising the size of the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
A goal of the organisation is to reduce heart disease in Australian women by 50 per cent by 2025.<\/p>\n
Dr Worrall-Carter says this is achievable because 80 per cent of the risk factors\u00a0that cause heart disease are modifiable. These include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, obesity and poorly-controlled diabetes.<\/p>\n
The Heart Foundation director\u00a0Julie-Anne Mitchell says there\u2019s a major misconception that heart disease only affects men.<\/p>\n
\u201cCancer organisations have done brilliantly at increasing awareness. Women live in fear of breast cancer but heart disease isn\u2019t really on their radar. Historically, there\u2019s also been a bias in heart disease research: the tests have been done on men, and the findings translated to women.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Heart Foundation\u2019s Ms Mitchell says the\u00a0lack of awareness also stems from the fact that women show different and more subtle symptoms of heart disease compared to men.\u00a0This makes diagnosing heart disease in women more complex, for both women themselves and the medical profession, and delays appropriate diagnosis and therapy.<\/p>\n
According to Ms Mitchell, 40 per cent of women suffering from a heart attack\u00a0won\u2019t have\u00a0chest pain, the classic symptom\u00a0in men.\u00a0Instead they\u2019ll have jaw pain or pain down their arm or back, she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis can lead to women misdiagnosing themselves – \u2018oh, I must\u2019ve just pulled a muscle gardening\u2019 \u2014 and so they delay seeking the necessary treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen if they do go to hospital, there is sometimes a bias among some medicos who see those non-chest-pain symptoms as indicating the women is just anxious. So again we get that delay in treatment, or under-treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then, research is showing that once they leave hospital having had treatment, they don\u2019t tend to make the lifestyle changes in the same way men do after a heart attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cEssentially, at every step of the pathway, women aren\u2019t getting the support they need, so we have a job to do in raising the medical profession\u2019s awareness as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her Heart founder\u00a0Dr Worrall-Carter says the organisation\u2019s short-term goal is to\u00a0engage Australian women in managing their risk factors for heart disease.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Australia 90 per cent of women have two or three risk factors. It\u2019s critical we make women aware of the warning signs and the need to schedule heart health checks,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
But now that the gender bias is less pronounced, The Heart Foundation\u2019s\u00a0Julie-Anne\u00a0Mitchell says more research is needed. \u201cWe\u2019re finding from research now there are some sex-specific links between heart disease, so that really needs further investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
What both experts agree on is that a call to action is needed, and that women shouldn\u2019t hesitate to seek help if they feel something\u2019s wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no shame in being presented to hospital and finding out it\u2019s indigestion after all,\u201d Ms Mitchell says.<\/p>\n