More than 400,000 women die of heart disease a year in the US. Just as we’re making progress in this fight, don’t risk critical research to save people from preventable deaths.
Protesters against planned National Institutes of Health funding cuts
The Trump administration’s push to slash funding at the National Institutes of Health has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
A federal judge set a hearing Friday for the 22 states challenging cuts by the National Institutes of Health of billions of dollars in research funding. NIH gives 50,000 competitive grants to more than 300,000 researchers at 2,500 universities, medical schools and research institutions.
Almost $3 billion goes to cardiovascular research ‒ less than 6% of the NIH budget.
Only a fifth of this funding goes directly to studying women’s hearts, even though heart disease kills nearly equal numbers of women and men and is a larger risk to women than breast cancer.
As cardiologists who lead a women’s heart health organization and who have received funding for groundbreaking research from NIH, the news was devastating and could not have come at a worse time. Just as we’re making progress in the fight against women’s heart disease, these cuts threaten to slow and halt critical research. It’s a knockout blow to women’s heart health.
Over 400,000 women die of heart disease every year in US
We simply can’t afford to lose momentum. Despite progress, deaths from heart disease and stroke are still rising, with more than 400,000 women dying every year.
There are still gaps in awareness of heart disease, including a widespread misperception that it impacts only men, unhealthy women and older people, when in fact it happens to everyone.
What’s more, the signs and symptoms of heart disease in women ‒ which can be very different from those of men ‒ still aren’t broadly recognized by both women and health care providers, leading to missed and delayed diagnoses. And the continuing lack of focus on sex-based differences in heart disease in medical schools means that we’re not training future doctors to adequately understand that a woman’s heart is biologically different from a man’s.
As cardiologists, we witness the frustration and resignation our women patients experience when they don’t feel seen or heard, or their symptoms are downplayed or ignored (“Go home, you’re just feeling anxious”). We see, too, what happens when women aren’t equipped with the knowledge or understanding of heart disease symptoms.
We see how all this fits into a pervasive narrative that women’s health is less than or somehow not as important as men’s.
A new survey by the Women’s Heart Alliance ‒ an organization led by and made up of women cardiologists ‒ captured what we’re seeing every day in our exam rooms and hospitals. The goal of the survey was to gauge cardiologists’ views and mine them for insights to help better understand their women patients’ knowledge and attitudes.
Our observations paint a concerning and grim picture.
Heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death for women in America
While the cardiologists surveyed think awareness of heart disease has increased, they estimate that just 1 in 4 of the women they treat know that heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in women. Many can’t identify the signs or symptoms of heart disease beyond chest pain, including pain in the arms, neck, back and/or jaw; shortness of breath; vomiting; fatigue; sweating; and stomach pain.
This lack of awareness leads to fewer early interventions, which increases preventable deaths.
Just as alarming, we’re making little headway on simply diagnosing heart disease in women. An astonishing 84% of the female cardiologists surveyed said they had treated patients in the past year who had been misdiagnosed by other providers.
Two-thirds said they were seeing a higher share of young women than they did five years ago, which tracks with national data showing a decline in awareness of heart disease among women ages 25-34, with women of color at particular risk.
Given this heart health crisis, it’s more important than ever to grow critical research. Women weren’t mandated to be included in NIH-funded research until the 1990s. We started late, but now we’re making headway, and the loss of federal research dollars at institutions and universities will set us back significantly in our efforts.
Women’s heart health deserves a level of funding equal to its severity and prevalence.
We also need to empower women to recognize the unique signs and symptoms of heart disease. We need to normalize cardiovascular care for women of all ages, and redouble our efforts to reach women of color, who are disproportionately impacted by this disease.
Medical school training must also adapt and integrate sex-specific education into curricula to ensure evidence-based care for women. For too long, medical schools have not focused on sex-specific differences in heart disease, leading to a lack of preparedness in the diagnosis, screening and treatment of women with cardiovascular disease.
As cardiologists, we walk every day beside women who are navigating a frightening reality. Our mission is to prevent them from needlessly facing and dying from a disease that is preventable. Today, with science under siege, we are moving in the wrong direction.
There’s never been a more important time to commit to the research, diagnosis and care of women’s hearts.
Dr. Noel Bairey Merz, scientific adviser for the Women’s Heart Alliance, is director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Dr. Holly Andersen, medical adviser for the WHA, is an attending cardiologist at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Martha Gulati, senior adviser for the WHA, is director of preventive cardiology and associate director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center.
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