How women can have heart attacks without having any blocked arteries

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Turns out that the kind of heart attack that I had (caused by a 99% blockage in the big left anterior descending coronary artery) – the so-called widowmaker heart attack –may actually be relatively uncommon  in women. You might guess that fact by its nickname.  It’s not called the “widower-maker”.

While cardiologists warn that heart disease can’t be divided into male and female forms, there are some surprising differences. Cardiologist Dr. Amir Lerman at the world famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, told the Los Angeles Times recently:

“When it comes to acute heart attacks and sudden death from cardiac arrest, women have these kinds of events much more often without any obstructions in their coronary arteries.”

Instead, it appears that a significant portion of women suffer from another form of heart disease altogether. It affects not the superhighway coronary arteries…