The common condition that’s more likely to kill women than men – and the 3 signs you must know

EACH year over 6million people across the world die of sudden cardiac arrest – and most of these are women.

Heart conditions are often wrongly associated with men.

GettyWoman are woman are twice as likely to die of cardiac arrest than men.[/caption]

But according to one 2019 study, woman are woman are twice as likely to die of cardiac arrest than men.

Cardiac arrest is an electrical fault with the heart, where it goes into an irregular rhythm and stops beating suddenly.

Death occurs within minutes unless the heart can be shocked back to a normal rhythm by means of an electrical current from a defibrillator or CPR.

But, Dutch researchers found that while three-quarters of us would attempt to resuscitate a collapsed man, compared with 68 per cent if it was a woman, in public.

They said say this could be because people didn’t recognise that women were having a cardiac arrest, which can lead to delays in calling emergency services.

But women themselves may also be unaware of the symptoms, according to the team from the University of Amsterdam.

Their findings, published in the European Heart Journal, showed that the overall chances of women surviving to being discharged from hospital was about half that of men – 12.5 per cent compared with 20 per cent.

Cardiologist Dr Hanno Tan, who led the research, said: “People may be less aware that cardiac arrest can occur as often in women as in men, and the women themselves may not recognise the urgency of their symptoms.

“Women may have symptoms of an impending heart attack that are less easy to interpret, such as fatigue, fainting, vomiting and neck or jaw pain, whereas men are more likely to report typical complaints such as chest pain.”

Another reason might be because demographically, there are more elderly women living on their own than men, therefore there isn’t as many people around to see it happen.

The 3 symptoms of cardiac arrest need to know

Signs and symptoms suggesting a person has gone into cardiac arrest include:

they appear not to be breathingthey’re not movingthey don’t respond to any stimulation, such as being touched or spoken to

If you think somebody has gone into cardiac arrest and you don’t have access to an automated external defibrillator (AED), you should perform chest compressions, as this can help restart the heart

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