What can women do to reduce their risk of heart disease?

Women can make several lifestyle changes to reduce the risk of heart disease, including:

• Quit or don’t start smoking.
• Exercise regularly.
• Maintain a healthy weight.
• Eat a healthy diet that includes whole grains, a variety of fruits and vegetables, low-fat or fat-free dairy products, and lean meats. Avoid saturated or trans fat, added sugars, and high amounts of salt.

Women also need to take prescribed medications appropriately, such as blood pressure medications, blood thinners and aspirin. And they’ll need to better manage other conditions that are risk factors for heart disease, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.

Generally, heart disease treatment in women and in men is similar.

We always associate chest pain with heart attacks, and for good reason, but it’s not the whole story — especially for women. While chest pain is the most common symptom of a heart attack, women can have symptoms that aren’t related to chest pain at all. They need to be on the lookout for other, subtler symptoms.

Three symptoms you should watch for, including information about how to tell if they are benign or cause for concern.

Like many women, you’re probably busy most of the time. You may take care of a family, run a household, work outside the home and care for aging parents. You are probably also tired a lot of the time. Most likely this is normal.

But you should pay attention to fatigue if it is new or dramatic. Here’s what to watch out for:
• You are suddenly exhausted after your typical exercise routine.
• You aren’t exerting yourself, but have fatigue or a “heavy” chest.
• Simple activity like making the bed, walking to the bathroom or shopping makes you excessively tired.
• Although you feel exceptionally tired, you also experience sleep disturbance

As women age, a lack of exercise and gradual weight gain cause issues like shortness of breath. Hot flashes are a common complaint for many women during menopause.

But these symptoms can signal a heart problem when they happen in certain situations:

• Sudden sweating or shortness of breath without exertion
• Breathlessness that continues to worsen over time after exertion
• Shortness of breath that worsens when lying down and improves when propping up
• “Stress” sweat (cold, clammy feeling) when there is no real cause for stress
• Sweating or shortness of breath accompanied by other symptoms such as chest pain or fatigue

As intricate as our body’s systems are, they are very adept at giving signals when there is something wrong. When there is a problem with the heart, it triggers nerves in that area, but you sometimes feel pain elsewhere.

Pain in the jaw, back or arms may signal a heart condition, especially if the origin is hard to pinpoint (for example there is no specific muscle or joint that aches). Also, if the discomfort begins or worsens when you are exerting yourself, and then stops when you quit exercising, you should get it checked out.

Here are some other signs to look out for:

• Women, in particular, can have pain in either arm — not just the left one like many men.
• Pain in the lower or upper back often starts in the chest and spreads to these areas.
• The pain is sometimes sudden, not due to physical exertion, and can wake you up at night.
• You may feel pain that is specific to the left, lower side of the jaw.