Women and heart disease

Heart disease is no. 1 killer in women

Heart disease isn’t just a man’s disease anymore. Cardiovascular disease, including stroke, claims the lives of more American women each year than the next seven causes of death combined. Heart disease claims the lives of more than half a million women each year – about a death each minute.

Facts about women and heart disease

• While 60 percent of women believe cancer is their number-one health risk, heart disease is the leading cause of death in American women.
• One in three women will die from cardiovascular disease.
• Eight million American women live with heart disease.
• Heart attacks are best treated within the first hour after the onset of pain or discomfort.
• Women are more likely than men to die from their first heart attack, partly because women take two hours to four hours longer to respond to heart attack symptoms than men. 
• Women may not have typical symptoms of chest pain from heart disease.
• African-American women are 72 percent more likely than white women to have heart disease.
• Women who have smoked are more likely to have heart attacks than women who have not. Smokers risk having heart attacks 19 years earlier than nonsmokers. 

Find out more

• Women’s hearts
• Symptoms
• Risk factors 
• Women's heart risk screening
• Tests and treatments 
• Prevention
• Heart healthy goal
• Hormone replacement therapy