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Heart attacks come with a variety of symptoms, some subtle and seemingly mild, others severe. To further muddy the waters, the symptoms often present in a very different way for women than for men. As a result, there have been various attempts to educate people on the more unusual signs of a cardiac arrest. The e-mail quoted below (which has subsequently begun circulating via other avenues and in somewhat shortened form) first landed in the snopes.com inbox in early March 2007: Although in general the missive contains good information about what symptoms to watch out for and what to do if you're having a heart attack, it jumps the track at two points. Of these two missed points, the most important is the assumption that one kind of heart attack typically afflicts men (i.e., the kind that results in a sudden clutching of the chest and keeling over) while another kind strikes down women (i.e., an attack that manifests itself as a bit of pain or tightness in the chest accompanied by an array of symptoms that could easily be mistaken for other ailments, or even by non-specific symptoms such as a general feeling of fatigue and weakness). Heart attacks don't discriminate by sex — men and women alike can (and do) experience both sorts. Says the American Heart Association: Some heart attacks are sudden and intense — the 'movie heart attack,' where no one doubts what's happening. But most heart attacks start slowly, with mild pain or discomfort. Often people affected aren't sure what's wrong and wait too long before getting help. Yet there is some truth to the notion of gender-based differences: Women are more prone to experiencing symptoms beyond the obvious sudden-onset chest pains. As the American Heart Association notes: As with men, women's most common heart attack symptom is chest pain or discomfort. But women are somewhat more likely than men to experience some of the other common symptoms, particularly shortness of breath, nausea/vomiting, and back or jaw pain. Women are also more likely to experience atypical heart attacks; that is, the sort that don't present as sudden shooting pains or a feeling of crushing weight in the chest area, followed by a sensation of pain radiating up the arm and into the neck, all accompanied by cold sweats. While 60 percent of female heart attack victims experience the more usual form of attack, 40 percent feel little or no chest pains at all. Yet the atypical heart attack happens to men too, which is why people of both sexes need to remain alert to the onset of more subtle symptoms, such as back and jaw pain, nausea, and indigestion. The second bit of misinformation is present only in the longer form of the e-mail, where it is included as the fourth entry in a numbered list of tips for surviving heart attacks (following three entries about making oneself aware of the variety of symptoms that can signal a heart attack, summoning paramedics rather than attempting to drive oneself to the hospital, and not regarding a normal cholesterol count as something that rules out the possibility of myocardial infarction.) That fourth item advances the claim that ingestion of cold water causes cancer or heart attacks. In a nutshell, no, it doesn't. For those who prefer the non-nutshell version, our Cold Comfort article tells all. Additional information:
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