Every year, an estimated 700,000 Americans have a first heart attack, with another 500,000 suffering a recurrent attack. About 40 percent of these people die as a result. However, many of these individuals might live if heart attack victims and bystanders recognize symptoms and call 911, said lead author Henraya McGruder, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). FULL STORY »

A recent international study of heart attacks and gender finds women differing from men on everything from symptoms to treatment in both heart attack and severe chest pain.

One of the most striking findings was that women were twice as likely as men to have “normal” or “mild” results on an exam of their heart’s blood vessels, with no single blockage taking up more than 50 percent of any one blood vessel.  This was despite the fact that their other test results showed they were definitely having a heart attack, or a form of chest pain called unstable angina. FULL STORY »