A new study published by the American Heart Association has our hearts skipping beats. According to the report, women who suffer from severe heart attacks were less likely than men to survive the first 24 hours in a hospital. The researchers also found that, compared to men, women were 14 percent less likely to be treated with aspirin to minimize blood clotting; and upon arriving at the hospital, 10 percent less likely to be treated with beta-blockers to moderate heart rhythm.

Researchers looked at heart-attack cases in 420 hospitals in the United States — a total of 78,000 cases — and studied these in regard to women and men. They found that, although there isn’t a gap in gender when it comes to people dying from all heart attacks, there is a 12 percent difference of women dying of a certain type of heart attack, which consists of STEMI or ST-elevation myocardial infarction. Each year nearly 400,000 Americans suffer from STEMIs, or severe heart attacks, in which an artery to the heart is blocked for a prolonged period of time.

The study appears in today’s issue of the journal Circulation. Click here to read an abstract.