The Surprising Truth About Women and Heart Disease
March 10, 2026 | Episode 58
Producer’s Note: The following is an AI-generated transcript of The Wellness Conversation, an OhioHealth Podcast
SPEAKERS: Marcus Thorpe, Lindsey Gordon, Dr. Anne Albers
Marcus Thorpe 0:00
It was one of the most popular episodes that we actually had last year. I'm talking about heart health and why it's different for women. And now we're going to dive back into that topic. Because it was so popular, we want to dive a little bit deeper into what is going on when it comes to heart health and women. Thanks for joining us. I'm Marcus Thorpe,
Lindsey Gordon 0:22
And I'm Lindsay Gordon. Before we get started, give us a rating on Spotify and Apple, because that actually helps us reach more listeners. Thank you to those who've already done so okay, and also, if you have any questions about anything we talk about today, just drop us a comment and we'll make sure to get those questions answered. Dr. Anne Albers is here today to help us dive into this topic. Thank you so much for being with us, Dr. Albers, we appreciate it. Tell us about your role here at OhioHealth in the heart and vascular space.
Dr. Anne Albers 0:51
Oh, well, thank you for having me and thank you for coming back to this topic, because it is near and dear to my heart at OhioHealth, I'm a cardiologist, and I work mainly at Riverside, but have done system wide work. And you know, our goal is to improve the heart health for our community, and I think we have an amazing team doing that. I see so I see patients I round on the inpatient service at Riverside. From a clinical standpoint, I do the imaging, cardiac imaging, heart testing
Marcus Thorpe 1:28
and things like that. I know we've done a lot of heart stories over the year here on the podcast, but for those who maybe are new listeners for us, can you explain kind of why heart really is not a one size fits all when it comes to care, especially when it comes to the difference between men and women, it is different, isn't it?
Speaker 1 1:47
Sure. Yes. Well, I think you know, listeners probably are can think of the Hollywood heart attack. So what do we when I say Hollywood heart attack? What do you think of? Well, you thought you might think of a man out in the cold going up a stair, holding his chest, because there's like an elephant sitting on his chest. So for whatever reason, that's kind of our collective view of what is a heart issue or a heart attack. You know, an actual presentation. People might have fatigue, they might have sweats, they might have nausea. And I, you know, I just talked to a patient who had gone to the ER, I think it's probably GERD, but I told her, which is gastroesophageal reflux or that acid indigestion. I told her, my worst worry is that someone will ignore their indigestion, and it's their heart and they're having a heart attack. So it's we're not always wired, so that we know, you know, we're not always a Hollywood heart attack. I've had women have the Hollywood heart attack. I've had men present with a Hollywood heart attack. You know, to the question of, how do women present? In general, we see that women a lot of times might present, and in hindsight, would say, Gosh, I was fatigued and and I, believe me, I take care of a lot of women where they're like, hello, like I am. So how is this different? Right? So it is different, though, and the paper where they identified this as a finding for women, it was a different degree. It was a different overall sense of fatigue. Women might have lightheadedness or dizziness. Certainly, fainting is a flag for your heart that there's an issue, but chest pressure, chest heaviness, chest squeezing can be symptoms of heart attack.
Marcus Thorpe 3:44
Yeah, I will say that in some regard, from just a regular Joe like me, it's, it's scary to think about that I might misconstrue something into, Oh, it's fine, you know? And it's really something worse. Now, I have a history of heart disease in my family, so any little twinge or something like that, I pay really close, but I could see how people could mistake, oh, it's fine. We do that with our our general health anyways. Oh, it's fine. It's nothing, and then it turns out to be cancer or something like that. So got to pay attention to our body.
Dr. Anne Albers 4:17
And I think that's the power of screening, and that's the power of knowing. Well, how could we look at your risk for heart disease, so being sure that you're staying current with with what we know and how we can check?
Lindsey Gordon 4:30
I think what's tough for women especially is, you mentioned the indigestion, but like you feeling anxious, right? I mean, those are things that we feel all the time. Fatigue we feel all the time. There are certain things in life, like perimenopause menopause, that ramp those feelings up of exhaustion and anxiety, but sometimes symptoms of a heart attack could also manifest in those ways too, right? And so do you think that's what makes us. Particularly really challenging for women.
Dr. Anne Albers 5:02
I think, definitely, I think the you know is it, is it not? What do I do? All that can be very challenging. And certainly there are life phases for women where we might have a higher risk for heart. I think it's important for women. I always talk to women. So you know, when we you know, they say, Oh, my numbers are okay. So we have specific risk factors for heart disease, like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, family history. But when, when people say, Oh, my cholesterol was fine, I say, No, I really want you to ask, What's my number? Know your numbers. Know your numbers for blood pressure. We call blood pressure the silent killer, because it might be higher as you go through life, or if you have stress, or for different reasons, blood pressure can go up. You might not feel it. So it's that's definitely a number you have to measure and know your number, I think, with you know, with knowing your risk and your history for women, that's what I was getting to and over your lifespan, if you have so there we we now think of pregnancy as somewhat of a stress test for you for your adult life. So if someone has high blood pressure with pregnancy, or if they have preeclampsia, which is a condition with higher blood pressure toward the end of pregnancy, or even after delivery, that is a marker for cardiovascular risk through their adult life. So Wow. So we Yeah. So I asked my women that I asked how old they were when they started menstruation, how old they were for menopause, because early menopause can be a risk, or people have to have premature menopause. We know that that is a risk for heart disease.
Lindsey Gordon 6:46
Wow, I did not know that
Marcus Thorpe 6:48
I love that we're learning so much more too, as as we kind of move forward. And even in your world where I feel like, gosh, physicians must know everything you're learning every single day and every single year too. I think it's really cool. That's the way it is. You mentioned stress, and we just had a podcast recently where our guest talked about, we have a tendency sometimes to live in bouts of stress where it's just part of what we do, and it's it's hard. Can you talk about how stress impacts the heart?
Dr. Anne Albers 7:19
Oh, that's a great question. So you know, we know that when I talk to my patients about this, there's that you could consider it kind of good stress bad stress, like, How much control do you have over the situation? I think the higher risk scenario is where you are not having a lot of control over your situation. You aren't you don't have a good outlet for the stress. So I really like exercise. I We know that being out in so I like to move my body through space, is how I talk to people about physical activity. But the other would be, you know, getting out in nature can help with stress, but yeah, definitely that that no control over your situation type stress, which life can throw you absolutely curve balls. And yeah, you might not have control over that, but okay, well, how are we managing that? And if you're not actively trying to manage it, either carving out a few minutes or calling and getting help from a counselor or a therapist, there are a lot of opportunities now to get that or physical activity. There are productive ways to try and manage that stress, but you can't live in that space all the time. Not No, I would say that's not a great space, not a good plan.
Lindsey Gordon 8:33
I was just having like a real talk with a mom friend the other day, and we were talking about, like in real life, managing stress. How do we do it, you know. And she gave me advice that I keep thinking about and I want to share it like it's not anything medical or but she said to me, I take what I'm feeling and then counteract it with something that's true, but the opposite. So, like, if I feel like I don't have control over something, you can say, like, I'm feeling stressed about this, but I'm safe, like, I'm not gonna lose my job over this. I'm not going to, you know, no one's gonna lose their life over this. You know, you kind of counteract it with something that's true. And you know, you are safe, you are okay. And I just keep thinking about that, and I, I just.
Speaker 1 9:17
So you identify it, you acknowledge it, and then. I mean, that's empowering, because sometimes you might not even feel that you're in that stressed space,
Marcus Thorpe 9:26
Yeah, if you live here all the time, you're like, Oh, this is just my normal, but that normal could be dangerous too, yeah.
Lindsey Gordon 9:31
And that's why I love that we're having these conversations more. You know, it's not we know that everyone's craving to have these types of conversations, and it's just becoming part of everyday life, and then everyone benefits from it. How easily are symptoms overlooked, symptoms indicating that you know you're heading down the wrong path for your heart health.
Dr. Anne Albers 9:59
Right, right. Um, I, you know, I think they can, you know, pretty easily, can be overlooked. I think, you know, we had a program. And I know nationwide, this is a program for so focusing on women. In this case, if a woman presents to the ER with any symptoms between the nose and the nose to navel, so belly button to nose to get an EKG, and that's the electrocardiogram. That's the electrical picture of your heart, and it can detect abnormalities or changes there, because we know that presenting with a heart attack time is muscle, and it's very important to treat someone expeditiously. So that is an emergency, and we move those people through. And so if you can get that, and the EKG is a lot of times, what can start that track? So if you can get that EKG sooner, you can reduce a woman's door to balloon time, meaning the time to try and intervene on an artery problem or blockage. So, so that's, that's one way I think talking to women. So the American Heart Association is So, you know, 20 years ago, started with the Go Red For Women to try and increase because we have kind of three areas to improve on, and we're making progress. But number one, do women are women aware that heart, you know, cardiovascular disease is their leading cause of death. It remains that, despite a lot of progress, so number one, are women aware? Number two, is the medical community aware? So if a woman comes in, do we know to say, okay, these, you know, you might not have the typical presentation, but these things are concerning, so going down that checklist, and then third, just kind of community in general, you know, understanding women are often the caretakers for the family. So they, I mean, I have a lot of patients where I know, actually my women patients where they are, you know, I hear about how they're taking care of their husband just had surgery, and they are attentive. I mean, they take care of them. They're taking care of the children. So we need to have a focus so that women can be able to take care of themselves and empower them. So that all comes back to the the American Heart Association's Go Red For Women. And I think there's just been progress.
Lindsey Gordon 12:26
And I love it that you have your pins on, we're just coming to March now. We just celebrated it in February. But I just, I love that you're wearing them. And it really is a great cause.
Marcus Thorpe 12:35
What would you say? Dr Albers is kind of the one biggest factor that you think people could make changes in their lives right now that would really impact their heart.
Dr. Anne Albers 12:47
So, I mean, the most preventable cause of death is smoking. So if you can stop smoking, that's better than most and the medicines I could give you, I think tobacco use, you know, just if you can not ever start or stop once you start, it turns out it's harder for women to quit than men. That's one difference that we've noted. I think, as much as you can try and optimize lifestyle, lifestyle, you know, you can't pick your parents, so you kind of get the genetic hand you're dealt, but you can choose. So, for example, the stress kind of how, how your environment is, what your food choice is, you can't I have patients who come in, they're like, Okay, I'm going to do, you know, the whole the best way to protect my heart, but it has to be sustainable changes. We're habit forming creatures. So if you can pick one change, or even just do an inventory and say, Okay, what opportunity do I have to change? Why am I eating that? Maybe a snack later at night? Is it stress? Is it, you know, just kind of do an inventory and look at your behavior. Look at how much you're moving your body through space. So if you can get 10 minutes of walking twice a day, that's the guideline recommendation for physical activity. And in that, in the case of exercise, for the most part, more is better, and you get benefit from your cholesterol, which is another big piece of heart risk. It helps blood pressure when you're physically active. It helps stress management when you're physically active. So, so you asked for one thing, and I gave you, like, 10.
Marcus Thorpe 14:28
That's a good doctor, right there, though.
Lindsey Gordon 14:30
I love that. I'm curious to know you mentioned, you know, all things to kind of keep your BMI in check, your weight in check as well. What's your take on on on the the season we're in of GLP, one medications where, I mean, some have said that it's a game changer for people. What's your take on it for as it pertains to heart health?
Dr. Anne Albers 14:52
There's excellent data for the that that whole class for helping protect your heart and. Um, the cardiovascular benefits extend beyond weight, really? Yes, that's so interesting. No, they're very they're an impressive new class that, yeah, really, I think are excellent for heart health.
Lindsey Gordon 15:17
That's awesome. That's good to hear.
Marcus Thorpe 15:19
Kind of a personal question. So, you know, my dad had three heart attacks, and the last one when he was 51 and he died. But heavy smoker traveled all the time and stressed for somebody like that, like myself or somebody else who's had like loss from heart disease, how much do genetics play in, you know, these kind of things. You mentioned that there is some correlation between somebody who's had heart disease in their family, and I'm worried about my kids down the line too, and kind of what it means for them. Can you talk about genetics a little bit?
Dr. Anne Albers 15:54
Right, well, a little bit. So, you know, on on levels, there are polygenic risk scores. So there's kind of real detailed information you can go down the genetics path. From my standpoint, in my practice, I would you're someone where I would check a lipoprotein, little a that is a molecule that's actually it's one in five people in have an elevated level. And it's a genetic thing. It's not lifestyle related, but if your LP, little a is high, this is a molecule, and we detect it with a blood test. But this is sticky, meaning it kind of sticks to platelets, so that can accelerate artery disease. It makes any LDL cholesterol, which is your bad cholesterol, more it's better at making plaque. So and then the third thing is, it just is pro inflammatory. So we didn't really talk about, you know, another risk we worry about with heart disease are people who have auto immune diseases, or we know there's inflammation. So lipoprotein little a is a molecule that kind of does all three, and when it's above a certain level, it's an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. So what would we do with that? If I know you have a high lipoprotein little a, I want to get your LDL level as low as we can, so we it's a sign that we want to optimize your heart risk wherever we can. So you look at where you can affect change and do that, and also a medication is far along in development that can reduce that lipoprotein la by about 80% it's not yet out, but we, we at OhioHealth, we had patients participate in the research for that, and it's looking promising that we will have a way to lower the lipoprotein, little a directly. But that would be, that would be one test to look at, definitely, definitely your cholesterol, looking at blood pressure, like you said, being aware of what would be a heart symptom. What should I look out for?
Marcus Thorpe 17:59
I'm open next Wednesday.
Lindsey Gordon 18:03
I'm curious to know too, is there a connection between sleep and heart health?
Dr. Anne Albers 18:07
Yes, so sleep can definitely relate to heart health we look at. I mean, from the standpoint of an arrhythmia called atrial fibrillation, patients who present to me with atrial fibrillation or even with high blood pressure or overweight habitus, I like them to get a sleep study, because if you have untreated sleep apnea, I could talk to you all day long about changing your diet, being more physically active, but you are not going to be able to lose the weight until we are able to fix that sleep apnea. Same with the arrhythmia. I had a patient where his atrial fibrillation returned, and it turned out his CPAP machine was not set like the setting had come off or whatever it needed to be adjusted. But once we got that tuned in, he was much better managed from a heart standpoint. So yes, it does relate.
Lindsey Gordon 18:55
This all kind of leads to my next question. You know, it seems like there's a good playbook for all of these things once identified, right? If so, if a patient's advocating for themselves, if they're in tune with their provider, and they identify these things, you can act on it. Where are the gaps? And I'm asking more for like the newly discovered things that we're talking about, you know, the perimenopause, the menopause, the hormonal changes for women. In your mind, where are there gaps, where we need a better playbook for when you know these factors in life are impacting heart health?
Dr. Anne Albers 19:30
So, right. So every cell has a sex, right? So hormones affect, you know, they affect us on the cellular level and the genetic level, we need basic science research to really know what's the benefit for like, I mean, we just don't know enough about women. I mean, it's a strange statement to make, but it's true, yeah, and that's what we need to know more about. So I would hope that you. Women can work with their provider and try and understand what we do know, and I'm hopeful that we will get a plan to be able to do the research that will give us the evidence to know the best way to treat women as they move through menopause, or whatever means symptoms of menopause. There's good support for doing hormone replacement, what type of hormone replacement and how? I cannot, at this time say, you know that we that hormone replacement will prevent you having heart disease. We just don't have that research. We, you know, we have a lot of research for a lot of things that can protect your heart health and help you. And so I work with my women to try and do that. And then I do have women where I I worry if they have high risk for taking menopause replacement therapy or the MHT or menopause hormone therapy. But you know, so I that is rare, but I think it is important just to talk with your provider to know what your risk is. So there can be risk for blood clots forming, there can be, you know, people who have risk for stroke or heart attack or who have had that, you know, we take a lot into consideration.
Lindsey Gordon 21:17
But does the benefit outweigh the risk, right? That's always the question correct? I mean, I think that's the theme we've uncovered as we've gone into more women's health focused topics, whether it's heart health or whatever, that there's so much that still is not known. And it's sort of validating to hear you say that right, as someone who's dedicated your life to this and serving women in this space and men, but to hear you say, like we aren't where we need to be, I don't know. I think that's like great transparency, yeah, and it's only going to help us move it forward, right, right?
Marcus Thorpe 21:53
I also think it's important to close as we're kind of running short on time here, but the need for women men too, but to be self advocates when they go in to see their physician or their specialist, you know, often, too often, I think women have felt dismissed or not heard in certain situations. How can we be better self advocates when we walk into our doctor's office, or have that relationship with our physician.
Dr. Anne Albers 22:24
Right, and you're going against, you know, a physician or a provider who's pressured on time, who, you know, has to get through a lot of things. So I would say, you know, for women, try and be organized, try and have like, if you have a chief concern, you know, stick with that. And don't kind of say the whole everything. I think I tend toward that too. I talk a lot, but as much as you can narrow down and say, Why? Why am I having the jaw pain? Or, I think you had said that, you know, do I need to worry about this or and then, if you can say, when it started, if you can say, what makes it worse? If you can say, you know, try and give the details for that. Number one. Number two, know your numbers. It's not enough for a doctor to tell you your numbers are fine. I'd say, Well, what are they and, you know, what, where do I want them to be, or why would I want them to be, you know, lower. But just to know the exact numbers, to know blood pressure, things like that. So I think it's, it takes its team effort for sure.
Marcus Thorpe 23:28
It's ownership, it's it is. It's knowing what you really have to jump into when you walk in the door. So I think that's great. Dr Albers, this has been a great conversation. We knew you'd be a great guest. We've actually been talking about you for a while. I know to actually have you here has been great, and I know that we're going to continue these conversations, and I'm sure we'll have you back very soon.
Dr. Anne Albers 23:48
Okay, sounds good. Thank you.
Lindsey Gordon 23:49
Thank you so much.
Dr. Anne Albers 23:50
You're welcome.
Lindsey Gordon 23:50
If there's anything in this episode that you want to go back and read more in depth, we'll have a transcript at ohiohealth.com/thewellnessconversation, and while you're there, check out the other topics we've had. If you didn't listen to part one of this from February of 2024 go back and do that. We think you'll love it.
Marcus Thorpe 24:07
Yeah, we've had almost 60 episodes now, so there's something for everyone, and we appreciate you helping grow our conversation here on the wellness conversation and OhioHealth podcast. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.