Men Get Heart Attacks Earlier, Women Get Diagnosed Later - Both Pay the Price - Dr Annapoorna Kalia

Imagine a heart attack. Many still picture a middle-aged man clutching his chest. Yet heart disease follows very different timelines and warning signs in men and women. Cardiovascular disease remains the world’s leading killer, responsible for millions of deaths annually, with heart attacks and strokes accounting for nearly 85% of fatalities, according to the World Health Organization.

While men tend to develop heart disease earlier, women may experience less typical warning signs, a clinical divergence that continues to influence awareness, diagnosis patterns, and long-term outcomes.

Earlier Onset in Men, Distinct Outcome Differences in Women

Clinical studies indicate men develop measurable cardiovascular risk nearly seven years earlier than women, with warning patterns emerging as early as the mid-30s. Higher rates of smoking, chronic stress, abdominal obesity, and sedentary lifestyles accelerate arterial damage, contributing to heart attacks that commonly occur in men during their mid-60s.

Hormonal protection before menopause delays the blockage or narrowed blood vessels in women, leading to comparatively later disease onset.

Despite later onset, women frequently experience more complex recovery patterns. The average age of a first heart attack is around 72 years in women compared to about 66 years in men.

Women show higher rates of heart failure, repeat hospitalisation, and long-term mortality after cardiac events, an outcome difference influenced by biological variation, age at presentation, and differences in disease manifestation.

Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Why Women Are Often Missed

Symptom recognition remains one of the biggest challenges in cardiac care. Men typically present with classic chest pain, pressure, or pain radiating down the arm, prompting immediate cardiac evaluation.

Women may experience unexplained fatigue, breathlessness, nausea, dizziness, jaw discomfort, or upper-back pain. Because these signs are less specific, they are sometimes misinterpreted as anxiety, gastric disturbances, or stress, a diagnostic delay that can affect treatment timelines.

Biological differences further complicate detection. Men more often develop concentrated blockages in major coronary arteries that are easier to detect through conventional angiography. Women frequently have diffuse plaque buildup or disease affecting smaller blood vessels, requiring more nuanced clinical evaluation and advanced imaging approaches.

Prevention, Screening, and Comprehensive Cardiac Care

Preventive care remains the strongest defence against cardiac events. Regular screening for blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity, combined with smoking cessation, balanced nutrition, physical activity, and stress management, significantly reduces risk across genders.

Men benefit from earlier screening due to younger disease onset, while women require closer monitoring during menopause and beyond, when cardiovascular risk increases sharply.

At Aditya Birla Memorial Hospital, cardiac care is supported by a comprehensive spectrum of cardiovascular services, including advanced diagnostics, minimally invasive interventional procedures such as angioplasty and stent placement, cardiothoracic and complex cardiac surgeries, specialised care for rare heart conditions, structured cardiac rehabilitation programmes, 24/7 cath lab and hybrid cath lab facilities, ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation) support for critically ill patients, and round-the-clock emergency cardiac services backed by state-of-the-art imaging.

Heart disease is neither solely a man’s illness nor only a concern of old age. Gender-aware cardiology is no longer optional; it is essential to reducing preventable cardiac deaths.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are of the author and not of Health Dialogues. The Editorial/Content team of Health Dialogues has not contributed to the writing/editing/packaging of this article.