Defunding the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Hurts Every Woman in America

Heart disease is the leading killer of women. Unrecognized heart disease is the top health threat for them. Most people think the number one killer of women is cancer. That’s wrong. It's heart disease. Only half of all women know this is their biggest health threat. “About 40,000 women die every year from breast cancer. Ten times as many die from heart disease. Bairey Merz says many of them could be saved. Once women are diagnosed with heart disease, treatments can be highly effective. But lots of women are misdiagnosed, often for years, in part because heart disease looks a lot different in women than it does in men.”

The National Institutes of Health sponsored the study that can help women understand the threat and what they can do about it. The Women’s Ischemia Syndrome Evaluation (WISE study) is a landmark trial sponsored by the NIH that totally changed the way we understand and treat heart disease in females. It is critical that women understand the indispensible role that the NIH plays in studies like this.

The private healthcare industry does not sponsor studies like this one that investigated the ways in which heart artery is different in women. That is extemely important evidence to guide the way we treat heart artery disease in females, but it does not make anyone any more money. In fact, the healthcare industry would make much less money from heart artery disease in women if we followed the important evidence from the WISE study. Private industry funds research into new drugs and devices that will make them more money. They will never fund studies like this that explore how heart disease is different in women and how that changes the way that we treat them. Cutting funding to the NIH means that studies that are important to taxpayers like women will not be done. Only studies with the potential to make even more money for wealthy people will be done. Taxpayer have a huge stake in sponsoring research like this through the NIH.

The WISE study aimed to improve symptom evaluation and diagnostic testing for heart artery disease in women, explore the mechanisms behind symptoms and poor blood supply in the absence of major heart artery blockages. Men have chronic blockages that obstruct blood flow much more often than women do. Women have repeated chest pain related to heart artery disease that is non-obstructive. It does not block the arteries or minimally blocks the arteries. In order to justify the placement of a heart artery stent, the artery must be blocked 70% or more.

Women often have heart artery related chest pain with no blockage at all or minimal blockage and the WISE study helped us understand these women can still have a heart attack or die suddenly. They are in danger. The WISE studies reveal the danger of underrecognized heart artery disease that does not block a heart artery. WISE women with repeated chest pain and with 0–49% blockage of a heart artery have more heart attacks and sudden death over 5 years compared with women without chest pain. In a recent analysis deaths of women over 9 years in women in the WISE study, 33% of the deaths occurred in women with less than a 50% heart artery blockage. That is a 13% death rate.

Since these women don’t have chronic blockages that are severely enough to justify a stent, too many cardiologists are telling these women that they don’t have heart disease. That is wrong, and too often, it is dead wrong. Since these women don’t have heart artery blockages that would merit a stent, they absolutely need best practice medical treatment or optimal medical therapy for their heart artery disease.

Let me help you understand how this works a little better. Look at the slide at the beginning of the article. These are slices of an artery that is cut across the vessel. The very top slice is a normal artery. Just below that is an abnormal artery with an early cholesterol deposit that does not block the artery at all. Below that is another artery with a much larger cholesterol deposit. None of these arteries are causing any blockages at all. Now look at the top image on the left. The cholesterol deposit is inflammed and rupturing and the slide below that shows a clot forming in the artery. If that clot grows and completely blocks the artery, that causes a heart attack. That is how you can have a heart attack with no chronic blockage. That is why a stent does not prevent a heart attack.

Now look at the images on the right. As you can easily see, the soft inflammed cholesterol deposit that ruptures to cause most heart attacks can regress with best practice medical treatment or optimal medical therapy. We would not know this information about women without taxpayer sponsored research from the NIH. We need facts and data from NIH-sponsored research to guide our treatment. There are still important studies to be done that matter to you. Support the NIH.