WHO: Noel Bairey Merz, MD, director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, is available for interviews to discuss women’s heart attack symptoms. “Rosie O’Donnell’s touching blog post about her recent heart attack spelled out the typical woman’s heart attack,” Bairey Merz said. “Rosie is doing a public service by making the public aware that heart attack symptoms are different for women.” Bairey Merz also directs a multi-year, multi-center National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute study on women’s heart disease.

WHAT: Women’s heart attack symptoms differ from men’s. While a man typically experiences pain or pressure in the chest, women are more likely to feel extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea and back pain.

Although heart disease kills more women than men every year, women’s heart disease treatment until recently was based on medical research performed on men. Under the direction of Bairey Merz, the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center is working to correct gender inequalities and to educate women on female-pattern heart disease symptoms.

WHY: In the U.S., more than 200,000 women die of heart attacks every year – more than those who die of all cancers combined. Yet many women don’t know the gender-specific symptoms of heart attack.

HOW: Cedars-Sinai is equipped with VideoLink’s ReadyCam camera, capable of instantly transmitting broadcast quality HD video directly to any network around the word. To arrange an interview, contact Sally Stewart at 310.248.6566 or [email protected]