Men vs. Women: Matters of the Heart By Miriam E. Nelson, MD The line in the Joe Jackson song, “Don’t you know that it’s different for girls?” refers to the way emotions play out differently in women’s hearts than in men’s. But women’s hearts themselves are different. No matter what your gender, you have about 100,000 miles of blood vessels in your body— enough to circle the earth four times. And your heart pumps about 4,300 gallons of blood through those vessels each day to every single organ and other tissues in your body. The blood drops off oxygen and nutrients to all of the body’s cells, and it picks up carbon dioxide and other waste. But inside a woman, a heart has a distinctly feminine touch. Consider these differences between women and men. How We Differ Warning Signs Men: Often the first sign of heart disease is a heart attack itself, a feeling like the chest is being run over by a Mack truck. Women: Women’s first warning signs are much more subtle and often hard to pinpoint. They may feel fatigue when doing something that they used to do easily, such as play tennis, run to catch a train, change sheets, or walk up two flights of stairs. Sometimes heart disease registers in women as a feeling of mild indigestion. Often there’s no chest pain whatsoever. 1 of 11