Major Medical Groups Publish New Guidance on Women’s Heart Health

• Four medical organizations have released three reports designed to strengthen women’s heart health.
• The guidance outlines a full prevention-and-treatment strategy for cardiovascular disease across a woman’s lifetime.
• The groups say women have unique biological factors that can raise their heart disease risk above that of men.

Four major medical organizations have issued a coordinated set of reports calling for a unified approach to improve cardiovascular care for women throughout life.

The reports describe ways to prevent, track, and treat heart-related problems from the start of menstruation through the reproductive years, pregnancy, perimenopause, and after menopause.

According to the authors, healthcare professionals should identify heart risks early in girls and women and work across specialties to provide coordinated care.

They emphasize that women have distinct biological factors that can increase cardiovascular risk, including hormonal and emotional influences.

The authors also point out that heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the United States and the leading cause of death during pregnancy. Even so, only 44% of women are fully aware of the danger heart disease poses to them.

The organizations behind the reports are the American Heart Association (AHA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.

The findings were presented in three reports published in the AHA’s flagship journal, Circulation.

“Women experience their healthcare across clinical specialties, but it often is fragmented or disconnected,” said Sadiya Khan, MD, who chaired the collaborative writing group and is a professor of cardiovascular epidemiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, in a news release.

“Specifically, these reports connect the dots for clinicians, for patients, and across health domains so that care is holistic and begins in adolescence, recognizing that women’s heart health is uniquely shaped by biological transitions not experienced by men — periods, pregnancy, perimenopause, and menopause.”

Experts welcome updated guidance for women

Specialists not involved in the reports told Healthline the update had been overdue.

Nicole Weinberg, MD, a cardiologist at Pacific Heart Institute’s Women’s Heart Center in Santa Monica, California, said the reports offer a constructive framework for women’s health.

“Women have unique cardiovascular risk factors related to pregnancy and menopause, and certain traditional risk factors, including diabetes, may increase their risk of heart disease more significantly than they do in men,” said Nissi Suppogu, MD, a cardiologist and medical director of the Women’s Heart Center at MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute at Long Beach Medical Center in California.

“Recognizing these differences is essential to identifying women at risk earlier, improving prevention strategies and ensuring they receive appropriate treatment,” she said.

“I am incredibly excited to see these new reports on women’s heart health,” added Svati Shah, MD, the president-elect of the AHA, associate dean of Translational Research, and director of the Precision Genomics Collaboratory in the Duke School of Medicine in North Carolina.

“They are a call to action for increasing education, research, and coordinated clinical care for women’s heart health,” Shah said.

Heart care across every stage of life

The organizations laid out their recommendations in three separate reports.

The first is a presidential advisory that outlines a female-specific life-course approach to preventing and managing cardiovascular disease.

In it, the authors say girls and women often face fragmented care across pediatrics, obstetrics, and gynecology.

They call for a unified approach that addresses the links between hormonal, psychosocial, and cardiovascular health.

The report divides life into five stages:

• Perimenarche: The transition around the first menstrual period. Age range of 8 to 15 years.
• Ovarian cycling: Regular ovarian and hormone cycles are established, and pregnancy typically occurs. Age range: 15 to 44 years.
• Perimenopause: The transition to variable cycle length, skipped cycles, and hormone changes. The estimated age range is around 45 to 51 years.
• Postmenopause: The years that begin after menopause or 12 months after the final menstrual period. Age range is 51 years and older.
• Pregnancy: The time before, during, and after pregnancy.

“Emerging data suggest that unique biologic transitions or life stages experienced by girls and women are linked with changes in [cardiovascular disease] risk, which may be due in part to physiologic changes in sex hormones,” the authors wrote.

Weinberg said the life-stage framework is especially useful for lowering risk.

She noted that menstrual problems during the teen years can signal heart health issues later in life. The same may be true of pregnancy-related complications, especially high blood pressure or high blood sugar.

“We need to be aware of these heart disease risks so we’re not caught by surprise 10 to 20 years down the road,” Weinberg said.

Suppogu agreed, saying medical professionals should stress that heart health is a lifelong priority and that prevention should start early.

“Encourage girls and women to establish healthy habits, understand their cardiovascular risk factors, and maintain regular checkups, even when they feel healthy,” she said.

“Women’s heart health has a unique constellation of risk factors and manifestations that are shaped by biological transitions that vary across a woman’s lifetime,” Shah said.

Coordinating care for women’s cardiovascular health

The second report is a science advisory that calls for a broader system for women’s cardiovascular care.

The authors recommend a model that integrates hormonal, psychosocial, and cardiovascular assessment across all life stages.

They suggest a national network of centers that would coordinate clinical care, education, training, research, and community outreach related to women’s heart health.

“These centers can reduce fragmentation, enhance earlier risk identification, and expand opportunities to increase representation of women in clinical research,” the authors wrote. “In doing so, they offer a bold opportunity for a scalable and equitable model to improve cardiovascular health for all women.”

As an example, they said only about 60% of women in the United States with hypertensive disorders during pregnancy see a healthcare professional about the condition within the first six months after giving birth.

“Given that pregnancy is a cardiovascular stress test and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are risk-enhancing factors for long-term [cardiovascular disease] risk, this represents a major missed opportunity to address cardiovascular risk,” the authors wrote.

“Pregnancy and the postpartum period are important windows into cardiovascular health throughout the life course,” said William Grobman, MD, vice-chair of the writing group and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in the press release.

“An adverse pregnancy outcome can unmask increased cardiovascular risk, and that information should guide care well beyond pregnancy,” he continued.

Preventing and managing heart disease in women

The third report is a scientific statement that proposes a consensus guideline for the female-specific prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease.

The authors say there is growing recognition that the best way to prevent and manage heart disease in girls and women requires attention to sex-specific factors tied to hormonal, psychosocial, and cardiovascular health over a lifetime.

The AHA press release highlights several age-related warning signs:

• Menstrual cycle patterns can reflect heart health, including early warning signs of cardiovascular risk such as polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS).
• Pregnancy history is part of heart history, since pregnancy complications such as high blood pressure and preeclampsia can serve as women-specific cardiovascular risk enhancers.
• Perimenopause can mark a cardiovascular turning point because of changes in cholesterol and metabolic health.
• Postmenopause is a key time for cardiovascular prevention, since most heart attack, stroke, and heart failure events in women occur during this stage.
• Psychosocial health matters as well, because women are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, and eating disorders, all of which can harm heart health.

Women make up about half of the population, and their cardiovascular health “must be a part of everyday care across medicine,” said Mariell Jessup, MD, chief science and medical officer of the American Heart Association, in the press release. “These publications give clinicians and health systems a shared foundation for recognizing risk throughout a woman’s life.”

Steps women can take to support heart health

In a scientific statement published in February 2026, the AHA projected that 60% of women in the United States will have at least one form of cardiovascular disease by 2050.

The organization also projected that 25% of U.S. women will have diabetes and 60% will have obesity by that year if current patterns continue.

The report listed several ways to help reverse those trends:

• Healthy choices should be promoted in schools, community centers, pediatric clinics, and gynecology offices.
• Health providers should focus on long-term plans for managing chronic conditions in women, such as high blood pressure.
• Treatment plans for long-term conditions such as atrial fibrillation (AFib) and heart failure should account for factors unique to women.

Experts also say women can take personal steps to lower their risk. Suppogu recommends the following:

• Follow a heart-healthy Mediterranean-style diet
• Get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise each week
• Maintain a healthy weight
• Manage blood pressure and blood glucose
• Monitor cholesterol levels
• Avoid smoking
• Get at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night

These recommendations also appear in the AHA’s Life’s Essential 8 tips for a healthy heart.

“Most importantly, we need to educate women that heart disease is not inevitable, and early intervention can help prevent it and improve long-term health,” Suppogu said.

Weinberg advised women to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and keep meat intake low. She added that regular doctor visits matter and that living healthfully does not need to be complicated.

Khan said improving women’s health requires community support.

“All girls and women deserve more healthy years to live their fullest lives,” she said in the press release.

“Advancing women’s health is a responsibility we all share. This investment improves not only women’s health but also the health of their families and their communities.”