Heart disease 'deadlier than breast cancer'

Heart disease kills 18 times more women than breast cancer, making it Britain's new silent epidemic, a conference of experts will hear today.

One in six women in Britain will die from heart disease but far fewer are aware of the risks compared with high-profile diseases such as breast cancer.

The conference - at the Royal Brompton Hospital in Fulham - will bring together experts from around the world to highlight women's heart disease risks.

Until now it has been widely thought that men suffered most from the disease and that female hormones help to protect women from damage.

About 66 per cent of women who die suddenly from coronary heart disease showed no symptoms.

Many women dismiss signs as indigestion because they do not suffer classic male symptoms such as acute gripping pain and shortage of breath.

Heart disease occurs when the arteries supplying blood to the heart are narrowed by fatty deposits. This increases the risk of heart attack because a clot can get stuck and block blood flow, causing the heart to beat with no blood in it.

Conference organiser Dr Vahini Naidoo said the differences in how the disease presents itself in women and men had become evident only recently.

She said: "Women often have milder symptoms, sometimes describing a burning sensation in the chest as 'heartburn', or mild discomfort in the back, chest, arm, neck or jaw." GPs often dismissed other female symptoms, such as complaints of being tired all the time.

Dr Naidoo said this had to change if more women were to be diagnosed and treated, adding: "Doctors could be missing heart disease in these women."

A spokesman for the British Heart Foundation said: "Every year nearly one in every two women who dies will do so from heart and blood vessel disease.

"Though coronary heart disease kills many times more women than breast cancer, most women still think it only affects men."