'Heart attack victims think they are suffering from flu or stomach pains'
More than four in 10 heart attacks may go unnoticed because sufferers do not recognise the symptoms, scientists have suggested.
According to a study by a team of Dutch researchers, one third of male heart attacks and half of female heart attacks are not spotted.
Overall, the study, which looked at more than 4,000 people, concluded that in those aged between 55 and 80 heart attacks were more likely to be recognised in men than in women.
Most heart attacks went unnoticed because that they did not produce classic symptoms associated with the condition.
Female sufferers were more likely to have undiagnosed heart attacks, as their symptoms tended to be less typical.
Eric Boersma, co-author of the study and associate professor of clinical cardiovascular epidemiology at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, highlighted the contrast between male and female heart problems.
He said: "Men and women experience chest pains in different ways.
"Women may sense shoulder pain instead of chest pain or they may think they have severe flu that they are taking a long time to recover from.
"Those with an inferior wall infarction may complain of stomach pain.
"So women may hold back from reporting symptoms and doctors may also be in doubt whether or not to consider heart disease as a source of the complaints."
Boersma added that the root of the problem lay in attitudes to male and female diseases.
He said: "It is also a problem that women and their doctors have traditionally worried more about death from breast and gynaecological cancer, than from heart disease," added Boersma.