Das Herz einer Frau schlägt anders! Herzinfarkt-Symptome, Heilung & Behandlung mit Prof. Dr. Eifert

Do you suffer from heart attacks, heart palpitations, heart rhythm disorders or maybe high blood pressure? This is not uncommon in the changing years. Why the female heart is different, how you can strengthen your heart and what you should pay attention to, I will talk about today with a heart expert. I welcome Professor Sandra Eifert here in the studio. She is a heart surgeon, heart transplant surgeon and gender medicine doctor. And she leads one of the largest women's heart talks at the Leipzig Heart Center. I am Susanne Kirschner-Bruns. I am a doctor and a book author. On this YouTube channel, you can find everything about women's health. Today I am particularly pleased to have Professor Sandra Eifert with me. And there is also a great occasion, because we both wrote a book together about women's hearts. Heart Talk, why the female heart is different and how it stays healthy. Sandra, what distinguishes the female heart from the male heart? In many respects, there are differences between the female and the male heart. A significant difference is due to the anatomy. The female heart is much smaller than the male heart. The female heart is about the size of a fist. The female heart also has less musculature than the male heart. This is due to the fact that the male sex hormones, the men generally have more musculature. And that also applies to the heart. And the hormones also play a role, i.e. the male testosterone. That is why the male heart has more muscle mass. But the female heart can compensate for this by beating ten times more per minute than the male heart. This is a significant difference, yes. Also, the cardiovascular vessels in the female heart are slightly smaller than in the male heart. And this also means that there can be certain differences in the function. You mentioned the hormones. Yes, definitely, because we are here on our women's health channel. And in this video, as a viewer, we would like to give you very valuable tips on how to strengthen your heart and what to look out for in the changing years. The changing years are really a phase in the life of us women who are not quite without for the heart. The oestrogen protects heart vessels, i.e. all vessels of the body and the heart itself, up to menopause. If the oestrogen level drops after menopause, then we miss this protective effect. It is also said that oestrogen is the vessel cleaner. And it is actually the case that after the changing years the risk of cardiovascular disease, among other things, for a heart attack, increases. And then it is like this, and now you come into play as a gender physician, that the heart attack is different for women than for men. Why? Yes, as you said correctly, the woman is very well protected for many years by oestrogen, in general for cardiovascular disease, but especially for a heart attack. Women get a heart attack much less often because of oestrogen, but if they suffer from it, they have a higher mortality rate. These differences compared to men are, in principle, in the entire course of a disease, including a heart attack, from the risk factors, through the symptoms, up to the diagnosis and therapy, and the course afterwards. Men have the typical pain behind the chest, often with radiation in the left arm, occasionally also with radiation to the lower jaw. Women can have these symptoms, but they don't have to. They often have much more unspecific symptoms, nausea, bloating, less stamina. All these symptoms are often pushed back to the changing years or to the older age. On average, women are 10 years older than men when they develop a cardiovascular disease or even a heart attack. On average, men are 60 years old and women are about 70 years old. And if we talk about this heart attack, then we really say, as in our book, that everything that happens to you in a strange way, i.e. when you suddenly have a stomach upset or when you feel sick, these are symptoms that can also point to a heart attack in women, but you don't think about it at all. And that's why our appeal is, everything that happens to you in a strange way, please have it examined by a doctor. What is very exciting, we want to address that again in this context, is gender communication. There is actually a difference in the communication of the symptoms that you have as a woman. That means, if we go to the doctor as a woman, then we don't necessarily get to the point. What is the difference between communication and also from a medical point of view? You address a very important point. Men have a biological advantage due to testosterone. They are really very target-oriented and that is also the case in communication. They can directly describe their complaints. I'll give you an example. Men say they've had these complaints for three weeks. It started when they were cycling and maybe have already ridden 10 kilometers. They had the typical complaints behind the chest. Women tend to explain the social situation. For example, they explain the birthday of the spouse and so on and may need five inquiries before they can say when they really had complaints. This is often something where the doctor, unfortunately, or the nurse is impatient and doesn't get the information she or he needs to make this diagnosis. What do you advise women when they go to the doctor? We have also described what we would advise in the heart conversation. We advise women to prepare well for the doctor's visit. Maybe you make a small checklist, prepare what points you would like to address, what may seem strange or insignificant to you. Take notes of this beforehand and say exactly the things that seem important to you. Or address issues that you would like to have clarified in the doctor's conversation. What we really want to address is the different effects of stress on the cardiovascular system in men and women. Those who normally have a lot of stress, i.e. very strong chronic stress, have a risk, regardless of whether they are a man or a woman, that is increased by 40 to 69 percent for a heart attack. But what really flashed me during the research for this book is that for women with emotional stress, the risk for a heart attack is increased by 300 percent. That's crazy. And that's where we are with this topic, that women are much more sensitive, or that the woman's heart reacts much more sensitively to emotional stress. Do you have anything else to say about that? Yes, that is also the reason why we have dedicated a lot of time to this topic in our book. Emotional stress, you have already explained that, plays a much stronger role for women in the development of heart disease. They may know the Broken Heart Syndrome, the syndrome of a broken heart. This follows as a disease of the heart on an emotional stress situation, be it the loss of a partner or a severe illness in the family. But bullying at work can also lead to the emotional stress affecting the heart and an acute heart failure, but with symptoms of a heart attack. And women are much more sensitive than men in this regard. 95 percent of patients with this Broken Heart Syndrome are women, of which 90 percent are already older than 50 years. And it is interesting that women process stress differently than men, but that they are not as resistant to stress as men. And all of this leads to the fact that stress has a particularly strong effect on the heart. What do we advise women? Definitely, it is very important to deal with stress differently, to reduce stress, to self-care, to say no. And to be very, very careful about this. And we, and this is also important to us, we have dedicated our attention to this topic, which is not necessarily evidence-based or not evidence-based, by saying that we look much more broadly at the topic of women's hearts and have also dealt with the pericardium meridian, the heart meridian, the chakras and the soul, which has an influence on the heart. So the pericardium meridian is there to protect the heart, to draw a line between what the heart sends out but also between what the heart receives, i.e. which information goes in or out, both in the emotional sense and in the mechanistic sense. So the principle of the meridian comes from traditional Chinese medicine and that means that we have energy flows that should not be disturbed. And if there are disturbances, then they can be treated with acupuncture or acupressure. Let's stay with the non-evidence-based medicine. What is the heart chakra? In yoga and also in Hinduist traditions, it is assumed that the body is not just this physical body that ends where our skin ends, but that we have an energy body around it. And the chakras belong to this system of the energy body and, among other things, the heart chakra. If that is blocked, then there are also blockages in connection with the cardiovascular system. And through meditation, also chakra meditation, you can ensure that this flow, as with the meridians, is very free. In addition to the pericardial meridian, the heart meridian also plays a major role in the function of our heart. The heart itself is, on the one hand, the engine of life. In traditional Chinese medicine, it is also the seat of the subconscious, the shen. Various symptoms point to this and can be treated well, as already mentioned, with acupressure acupuncture. So, finally, we would like to give our viewers a summary of what they can do for their heart to strengthen their heart and also prevent heart disease in the changing years. There would be stress reduction, the Mediterranean diet, we haven't really gone into that now, but definitely a diet with less animal protein and more vegetable oils and proteins, a lot of green vegetables, movement is very important. What else do you think? For the heart specifically, it is about tension, but also about relaxation. You have already mentioned that. So, for women in the changing years, conditioning training is an essential point, but also cardio training is very important in all phases of a woman's life. In addition, mouth health also plays a very important role, because heart health already begins in the oral cavity. Listen to your heart, pay attention to your heart, do something good for your heart. Because, as the little prince says, you can only see well with your heart. I would like to thank my guest today, Professor Sandra Eifert. Thank you very much for being there. It was a lot of fun. And we say welcome, your Susanne Kirschner-Bruns and your Sandra Eifert. If you liked the video, then I'm happy about a thumbs up, about a subscription and activate the bell so you don't miss a new video. Welcome, your Susanne Kirschner-Bruns.