Heart attack symptoms usually get missed or ignored by younger women, new research shows.

The study, including 30 women with an average age of 48 who had had heart attacks, concluded that the majority of women confuse the symptoms of a heart attack with fatigue, indigestion, stress, among other things, WebMD reports.

“We found that most failed to connect their symptoms with a heart condition, commonly misattributing them to fatigue, indigestion, stress or overexertion. We learned that many of these women had no idea that they were at risk for heart disease and were unaware that their symptoms could be connected with a heart problem,” lead author Judith Lichtman of the Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. said in a statement.

The women participating in the study were interviewed within a week of leaving the hospital after their heart attack. Most of the women said they thought they were too young to be having a heart attack. Others said they had atypical symptoms that lasted for more than a day or they confused these symptoms with some other condition.

Many women also reported that urgent action hadn’t been taken when they described their symptoms to their doctors. In many cases, they received an appointment a few days after their initial call. Other women said that not even doctors recognized heart attack symptoms and once they ended up in emergency rooms, they sat for extended periods because they were thought to have non life-threatening non-heart related conditions.

Dr. Lichtman warned health care providers, by saying they need to be aware that young women may experience atypical and typical heart attack symptoms and treat them promptly.

“Because heart disease is less common at this younger age, current media campaigns and prevention messages do not appear to be reaching this group,” she said.

Almost half a million U.S. women die annually because of heart disease. According to this study, 16,000 young women with heart disease die every year and 40,000 are hospitalized.

The findings of the study were presented Friday at the American Heart Association's 9th Scientific Forum on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research in Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke.