New digital hub addresses key risk factors, supports awareness and action to prevent heart disease in women

A Calgary woman is sharing her empowering story of recovery from a heart attack as part of a new national campaign to address women's heart and brain health.

It was a triple-bypass, open heart surgery that saved the life of Christina Stuwe in 2018, but her irregular heartbeat went undetected for several years and she suffered a heart attack without even knowing it.

"I had an angiogram in November 2017 and it was a shocker. I had three arteries blocked, one was 100 per cent blocked and they let me know that I'd had a heart attack when I was about 44, six years after I had my son," Stuwe said.

"I knew something was wrong and I had to push to get that identified. The gender bias is real, even with all of this information in my cardiologist's hands, he wanted to wait a year and see what would happen."

Stuwe's story is sadly not uncommon as heart disease is the number one cause of premature death in Canadian women, with 32,271 deaths alone in 2019 – one woman's life every 16 minutes.

According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, those figures account for 20 per cent more women than men who died of heart failure that year alone.

Compounding this is the fact that only 11 per cent of women in Canada can name one or more of women's specific risk factors for heart conditions and stroke as well.

It's why the organization launched a multi-year awareness and educational campaign to support women's heart and brain health through a new online women's digital hub.

"Knowing awareness is low and wanting to meet women where they are, we created a digital hub organized by life stage," said Dr. Christine Faubert, health equity and mission impact director with the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

"Women will be empowered to become aware of their risks, encouraged to assess their own unique risks and supported to take action by speaking with others including their healthcare providers."

The platform highlights risk factors that vary differently from men across three unique stages in women’s lives: reproductive years due to factors such as contraception or pregnancy; menopause or midlife as estrogen levels fluctuate; and post-menopause when protective factors associated with estrogen are gone.

The hub includes practical information around modifiable, lifestyle risk factors such as an unhealthy diet, and physical inactivity. It also identifies non-modifiable risk factors such as age and family history, and medical risk factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes, as well as tips and resources including a self- assessment tool.

Dr. Kara Nerenberg, the Heart and Stroke Foundation's women's heart and brain health research chair and a University of Calgary associate professor, says addressing sex and gender specific issues around women's heart health is essential to ensure they don't fall through the cracks.

"There's major gaps, not only at a clinical level for clinicians to be aware and for patients to be aware, but we also know that the research level and many of the research questions in the past really focused only on male specific research conditions," Nerenberg said.

"So what we're really trying to move forward is female specific research that includes research on heart and brain health over these different time points in a woman so that we can better tailor care for these high risk women."

Nerenberg adds that other risk factors specific to women influence heart and brain health as well, including polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), inflammatory and autoimmune disorders, breast cancer treatments and chronic kidney disease.

As for women like Stuwe, her book Yes it's my Heart… Is it Yours Too? has since highlighted her journey and continued to raise awareness for women and doctors who might not recognize the early symptoms of heart disease.

She says this digital hub will quite literally save lives.

"You've got to trust your gut, or in this case, trust your heart. You're not alone and I want women to know that it's OK to stand up for yourself."