Women enrolled in the small pilot study were interviewed to determine their perceived risk for heart disease prior to the event, the symptoms they experienced during their heart attack and their response to these symptoms.

The findings were presented this week at an American Heart Association meeting on cardiovascular disease care in Washington.

Among the major findings:

1. Most of the women (88 percent) reported having some degree of chest pain. More than half (58 percent) also experienced pain in the jaw or shoulder; 38 percent experience sweating, 29 percent had nausea, and 29 percent had shortness of breath.

2. 88 percent of the women had a parent or sibling with heart disease.

3. 71 percent described their overall health as fair or poor, but fewer than half considered themselves at risk for heart disease.
4. More than half (54 percent) had a history of high blood pressure, 42 percent had high cholesterol, 21 percent had diabetes, and 30 percent were current smokers, all of which are risk factors for coronary heart disease.

5. Most of the women were overweight or obese. Their average body mass index score was 34. A BMI of 30 or above is considered obese.

"It is clear that risk factors like obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure play a big role in these early heart attacks, and family history is extremely important," says American Heart Association spokesman David Goff, MD.

A professor of public health sciences and internal medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Goff tells WebMD that heart attacks in women under age 40 are extremely uncommon, unless there is a strong family history of heart disease or high cholesterol.

"Certainly one message is that women with these risk factors should never ignore symptoms," he says. "If they have chest discomfort that lasts more than 10 or 15 minutes, they need to get it checked out. They also need to be aggressive about lowering their risk by keeping their blood pressure and cholesterol under control and stopping smoking."