Congenital Heart Defects + Original Articles

These conditions often have the same symptoms of heart attacks. Chest pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, swollen limbs and ankles, dizziness—when presented in certain combinations, the symptoms of heart disease can be mistaken for other illnesses. Worse still, because women’s symptoms are slightly different than men’s (sometimes the disease can manifest itself in the fairer sex through discomfort in the neck or shoulder and nausea or vomiting), they stand a greater chance of having their heart disease initially misdiagnosed.

Find out why women are at such a high risk for heart disease. Though men are still perceived to comprise the majority of heart disease sufferers, as women age, their heart attack risk starts to equal that of men's. According to the American Heart Association, heart disease and stroke are the leading causes of death among older women, with about twice as many dying of cardiovascular disease than all the cancers combined.

Find out what you can do to prevent the number one killer of American women. Heart disease should be a concern for every American. According to The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease is the leading cause of death for both women and men in the United States. However, among all U.S. women who die each year, one in four dies of heart disease.

Learn what you can do to protect yourself from this debilitating health threat. According to the American Heart Association, stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States. And although many people survive these medical emergencies, the disease can have a devastating impact, not only on the survivor, but on everyone who cares about him or her.