Medical expert of the article
New publications
Two out of five women do not have chest pain when they have a heart attack
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
Two out of five women don't have chest pain when they have a heart attack. Instead, they may have hard-to-recognize symptoms such as pain in the jaw, neck, shoulder or back, stomach discomfort or sudden trouble breathing.
Experts led by Dr. John Canto, director of the Chest Pain Center at Lakeland Regional Medical Center in Florida (USA), note that men and women who are obese, have diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or a family history of heart disease should be extremely careful about the occurrence of all of the above symptoms.
The study analyzed data on 1.1 million patients who were admitted to American hospitals with heart attacks between 1994 and 2006. About 42% of them were women, and on average they were older than men at the time of their heart attack. 35% of patients of both sexes (almost every third) did not complain of chest pain. At the same time, women had heart attacks without chest pain more often than men: 42% versus 31%. Deaths in hospital beds from heart attacks were also more common among women: 14.6% versus 10%.
It has also been established that a heart attack without chest pain often ends in death. And one of the main reasons for this is that people can put off visiting a doctor, and when calling an ambulance or getting to the hospital, they do not pay special attention to other alarming symptoms, as a result of which they do not receive urgent help.
In women, the higher death rate was also linked to biological differences in heart disease between men and women. When researchers compared men and women who did not experience chest pain, the risk of death was higher in women.