A new survey reveals that many women experience unusual fatigue or trouble sleeping in the month before they have a heart attack.

Sometimes a heart attack seems to occur out of the blue. But, in retrospect, many people may report unusual symptoms in the period before the event. If these could be identified, it's possible some intervention could prevent the heart attack from occurring.

Researchers at the College of Nursing at the University of Arizona have found that many women who've had a heart attack may feel unusually tired in the month before it happens. They spoke with 515 women discharged from hospital with a heart attack and found that 95 per cent of them had experienced new or unusual symptoms in the month before it happened. The most common early symptom was fatigue, reported by 70 per cent of the group.

Other common symptoms occurring in the month before a heart attack were sleep disturbance, shortness of breath, indigestion and anxiety. What is more, nearly half of the women did not even have chest discomfort during heart attack. This may be why heart attack is missed, or misdiagnosed, more often among women than men. Clearly there's a need to learn more about the symptoms of heart attack in women.

Source

Circulation rapid-access 3rd November 2003