Century Lives: Your Heart Is on Barbra Streisand’s Mind
Century Lives podcast recently interviewed cardiologist C. Noel Bairey Merz, MD, director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, about women’s heart disease—a condition that often is overlooked, underfunded and misdiagnosed.
Bairey Merz told podcast host Ken Stern many people are not aware cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death among women in the U.S.
“Our societal and our cultural expectations remain that women don’t think they’re going to get heart disease, even though the average woman with average risk factors gets heart disease in their lifetime,” she said.
Bairey Merz told Stern heart attacks present differently in women: symptoms can include jaw, neck or back pain; extreme fatigue; indigestion; and nausea. This historically has led to misdiagnoses or physician dismissals and a lack of diagnostic testing and proper treatment that could save lives.
“So, things that worked well were saving men’s lives, but they weren’t being deployed in women—mostly, I think, because women were not being recognized. And if you don’t get diagnosed, you don’t get treated,” she said.
Bairey Merz told Stern it’s common for her to diagnose a heart attack in women who have had multiple physicians tell them nothing was wrong.
“They burst into tears of joy because they have a diagnosis,” she said, “and because we say, ‘And we can treat this. We don’t ignore this.’”
Heart disease patient Dianne Travis-Teague told podcast producer Erin Bump she experienced that same relief with Bairey Merz.
“My first visit with Dr. Merz was different because she immediately sat beside me, and she wasn’t judgmental,” Travis-Teague said. “When I told her I was afraid, she comforted me. She shared with me that I was going to be OK.
“There are women who’ve been to four or five different places before they meet a Dr. Merz who takes the time to hear them.”
Click here to listen to the entire episode of Century Lives.