Are heart attack symptoms different for men and women?

It’s a myth that women and men have different heart attack symptoms. Symptoms can vary from person to person, but there are no symptoms that are more common in women than in men.

Misconceptions around symptoms may make women less likely to seek and receive treatment. These misconceptions may also delay diagnosis, making poor outcomes more likely. Coronary heart disease kills more than twice as many women than breast cancer in the UK every year. But despite this, it’s often considered a man’s disease.

The most common signs of a heart attack are:

• sudden and persisting pain or discomfort in the chest that feels like pressure, tightness or squeezing
• the pain may spread to either arm, the neck, jaw, back or stomach 
• you may also feel sick, sweaty, light-headed or short of breath.

If someone is having a heart attack, treatments to restore blood flow to the affected part of the heart muscle must be given as soon as possible to help limit the extent of damage to the heart.

• If you think you're having a heart attack, call 999 immediately. 

If you’d like to know your risk of heart disease and you're aged 40–74 and living in England, you can ask for an NHS health check. Similar schemes are also available in other parts of the UK.

• You can read more about the gender gap in heart care in our Bias and Biology report at bhf.org.uk/biasandbiology.

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