The article “The Woman’s Heart Attack” by Martha Weinman Lear (New York Science

Times, September 24, 2014), discusses the gender inequalities of heart attack research. In
Hollywood, heart attacks are depicted by the obvious discomfort, clutch of the chest, and
collapse, and is actually very similar to how most men, including the author’s first husband,
experience heart attacks. However, after a first-hand experience with a heart attack as a female,
the author can tell a very different story of her symptoms. She experienced chills, mild chest
pressure, diarrhea, and vomiting, the latter which are rarely to never associated with heart
attacks. After two days, she went into the hospital and it was determined that she had had more
than a mild heart attack.
Lear’s own heart attack sparked an interest in the difference between males’ and females’
heart attacks. Typically, men have more deep chest pain and women have early signs of
irregular nausea or insomnia. Heart disease is the biggest killer of women in America- maybe
because our arteries are smaller, because our microvascular system functions less efficiently,
because her heart beats faster, or all of the above. But it is not understood because of a major
gender bias in heart attack testing: even nowadays, only 24% of participants in heart related
studies are women.
For further research, the article raises questions about why heart attacks are so different
depending on gender. How long will it take to do the tests to figure this out, now that we have
the funding from the National Institutes of Health? Will women eventually be able to solidly
identify their heart attack symptoms, instead of simply being told that any abnormalities
anywhere from your chin through your abdomen could be signs of heart disease? Because
women rarely know their symptoms, though more men than women have heart attacks, a ₂₇
percentage of women die because they seek no help due to their lack of knowledge. When will
the general public be informed about the variety of heart attack symptoms in women?
When I think about my life and my past, I can only picture men having heart attacks. My
uncle, my grandfather, my friend’s dad… Why haven’t I been taught about women’s heart
attacks? I am female and heart disease runs in my family… I should be informed about
everything I can do to prevent it and how to tell symptoms in my own body for when I get older.
Cholesterol, which often causes buildup in arteries, leading to a blood clot getting stuck
and a heart attack, has a molecular formula of C₂₇H₄₅OH. The middle, 4-ring steroid hormone
region, is the “cholesterol/carbon” portion of the molecule, and this in combination with the
polar hydroxyl group and the nonpolar hydrocarbon region make cholesterol amphipathic- both
water soluble and fat soluble. Unfortunately, cholesterol is not water-soluble enough to dissolve
in blood, and therefore travels through the bloodstream and begins to clot up arteries.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/28/opinion/sunday/womens-atypical-heart-attacks.html