Even though Nicole Lawson, a 53-year-old nurse in Los Angeles, spent most of her 20s and 30s with bouts of severe chest pain, her doctors told her it was stress, acid reflux, or—wait for it—all in her head. Finally, one cardiologist specializing in women's heart health did a cardiovascular ultrasound, which showed that Nicole had coronary microvascular disease, a condition much more common in women than in men that involves blockages in the smaller arteries around the heart. It had gone undetected in the standard testing done on her by more than a dozen cardiologists. Unfortunately, Nicole is not alone. When it comes to heart disease, recent studies show that women have a 50% higher chance than men of receiving the wrong initial diagnosis after a heart attack and are 25% more likely to be misdiagnosed after a stroke. That's not all: One new study from the University of Copenhagen found that women are diagnosed an average of four years later than men when it comes to ...
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