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Howard G. Smith, M.D. is a former radio medical editor and talk show host in the Boston Metro area. His "Medical Minute" of health and wellness news and commentary was a regular weekday feature on WBZ-AM, WRKO-AM, and WMRE-AM. His popular two-way talk show, Dr. Howard Smith OnCall, was regularly heard Sunday morning and middays on WBZ.

Dr. Smith has adopted audio and video podcasting as conduits for HEALTH NEWS YOU SHOULD USE. Based on the latest medical, health, and wellness literature these reports provide practical information you can use to keep yourself and your family healthy. Many reports have video versions, and Dr. Smith’s YouTube Channel may be found at: http://bit.ly/2rNw6XQ

Trained at Harvard Medical School and a long-time faculty member at Boston Children’s Hospital, he practiced Pediatric Otolaryngology for 40 years in Boston, Southern California, and in central Connecticut.  He is now based in New York City.

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Please note that the news, views, commentary, and opinions that Dr. Smith provides are for informational purposes only. Any changes that you or members of your family contemplate making to lifestyle, diet, medications, or medical therapy should always be discussed beforehand with personal physicians who have been supervising your care.

Aug 29, 2019

Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/ippJoLK0hZU

 

I learned in med school and then read over and over again that women have different and more subtle heart attack symptoms compared with men.  Cardiologists often warn not to expect the crushing left-sided chest and arm pains if you want to make a clinical diagnosis in women.

 

A Scottish study, just published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, now labels this medical orthodoxy a medical myth.  Researchers at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary studied the presenting symptoms of 274 heart attack victims diagnosed by the gold standard cardiac muscle protein troponin test.  Ninety-three percent of both men and women had chest pain and 48-49 percent of each gender had pain radiating to the left.  Women did have more pain traveling to the jaw and back as well as nausea, but men also had the gastrointestinal symptom heartburn and also reported back pain.

 

The assumption that women only have atypical heart attack symptoms has led to delayed diagnoses and over 8,000 avoidable deaths during the last decade in the UK and Wales.  The same is likely true for the US. 

 

Knowing this latest finding should drive us to demand an EKG and a troponin test for any woman with chest, arm, jaw, or back pain.  Doing so could be lifesaving.

 

Amy V. Ferry, Atul Anand, Fiona E. Strachan, Leanne Mooney, Stacey D. Stewart, Lucy Marshall, Andrew R. Chapman, Kuan Ken Lee, Simon Jones, Katherine Orme, Anoop S. V. Shah, Nicholas L. Mills. Presenting Symptoms in Men and Women Diagnosed With Myocardial Infarction Using Sex‐Specific Criteria. Journal of the American Heart Association, 2019; 8 (17) DOI: 10.1161/JAHA.119.012307

 

#Heartattack #women #underdiagnosis