Heart Disease Is A Killer In Women
Heart disease is the number one killer of women. One in every three women will succumb from cardiovascular disease, only one in 10 will succumb from breast cancer.
We spoke to senior cardiologist at EHE International, Dr. Herbert Insel. He is a clinical instructor in medicine at the NYU School of Medicine.
"The trouble is," said Dr. Insel, "women don't perceive heart disease as their greatest risk. They don't fear it as much as breast cancer which is probably more personal for them as a female. They should probably try to fear heart disease more because their risk of dying from heart disease or cardiovascular disease is 10 times greater than that of breast cancer.
Heart disease in women presents very differently than in men. "The symptoms for women are quite different than for men, women more commonly develop nausea, dizziness, sweating, anxiety, fatique, inability to sleep, inability to concentrate, shortness of breath and indigestion. The classic chest pains, the classic crushing discomfort, is very unusual in females. Women tend to disregard some of these symptoms and not relate them to heart in origin. The feeling of chest discomfort, or indigestion or some type of chest-related sensation is not that common in females. It's a different type of feeling and that's why females do not associate it with heart disease. If they got the same classic symptoms, they might have a more heightened awareness of that fact.
"Women are definitely treated differently. The woman is less likely to get referred to the ER by a health care provider. The woman is less likely herself to come to the emergency room because women are not aware they're prone to heart disease. Once women get to the ER they are less likely to be taken seriously vis a vis heart disease. They're less likely to be referred for further testing suggesting that there's heart disease. Also, once they're in the emergency room and once they're with their health provider and heart disease is suspected, they're less often referred for various testings and treatments that their male counterparts get."
February is Heart Month, and the first Friday in February is 'Wear Red Day. The idea is to give an urgent wake up call to women; to increase their awareness that heart disease is the number one killer. The red dress symbolizes that heart disease doesn't care what you wear; it's the number one killer of women.
"So it's the the women's responsibility, or in their best interest, if they protect their heart health and they take action and be proactive and do the things necessary to diagnose and prevent heart disease.
"The good news is the traditional behavior modification that are usually associated with heart disease is very applicable to the female, moreso than the male. In fact it's been shown that if women abide by four basic lifestyle changes they can reduce heart disease by 82% which is an astonishing figure."
So how do women prevent it?
"Eat right. Maintain a healthy weight, exercise regularly and don't smoke. Also women should know their blood pressure, their cholesterol numbers. They should know their risk factors. They should be inquisitive. They should make sure their health care provider takes them seriously and they need to take action on their own part, in terms of preventing health disease.
"In terms of exercise. Exercise has different components. In a perfect world we should include aerobic conditioning, as well as stress and resistance type of exercise and flexibility. There should always be three components in terms of exercise. In terms of actual reduction in heart disease, probably aerobic conditioning is the most important. Of course, let's not forget the whole concept of weight training, or some resistance exercise. We want to build up muscle strength. Osteoporosis is still a major contributor to disease in females. The more muscle strength mass you have, the less fat that you have. That is very heart healthy.
"It's true for everyone. There's always a genetic component to any disease, as well as environmental factors involved. Certainly if a female happens to have a family history, a significant family history of heart disease, it behooves that individual to be even more careful about their risks.
"Heart disease can occur even in the young. It's a myth to assume that for the female just because they haven't reached menopause, that they are immune to heart disease. It's much less common than in the post menopausal woman but the premenopausal woman is also at risk for heart disease. This is especially true if they have hypertension and/or diabetes.
"If a woman smokes they're risk of getting a heart attack is 20 years younger than that of their non smoking female counterpart.
"In fact, risk factors of heart disease are probably more important for females than they are for men. Once they get older their risk for developing diabetes and high blood pressure is much greater than that for their male counterpart. "And if they do develop these risk factors their risk from these risk factors for getting heart disease are increased compared to males."
"In general females are underdiagnosed, undertreated and understudied in the research trials that have been going on for years.
Men have more obstructive disease; the blockages that we know about. So tests are designed specifically to diagnose obstructions really only apply to men.
"Females have somewhat smaller arteries, more thicker, less compliant, more diffuse disease. They have more plaque build up, the muscles around it tend to spasm more and they have a very unique disease known as microvascular disease.
"A recent study showed women have more serious cardio disease and it's a different disease than it is for men, they have a different pathology than men, as such all the diagnoses, all the treatments have been focusing on what's best for the men ie. search for that major blockage, find it, angioplast it, stent it, bypass it. Women more frequently do not have obstructive disease. These women have what's called microvascular disease. The small vessels are involved. Women in general have more functional disability, they have more symptoms. They do worse with heart attacks. They do worse with angioplasty. They do worse with stents. They do worse with heart failure. They do worse with bypass surgery. So the question is why do women do worse than men and the reason is because they have a different type of disease.
"First of all we need to do more research into finding out what are the unique differences and how can we best approach women and heart disease but the good news is that the same modification of risk factors, the same lifestyle modifications, the aggressive pharmacological and lifestyle treatment of hypertension, diabetes, cigarette smoking, the same aspects that are known to prevent heart disease will also do so for females.
It's more important for the female to do this because with the male you can bypass, you can stent the lesion, you can't do so very often with the female.
"It's so much more important for the female to adhere to proper lifestyle and also make sure they demand from their health care professional, they're health care provider, that they address heart disease, that they become knowledgeable about it.
"By the way stress is a very large risk factor of heart disease. It can account for up to 30% of heart attacks in a female..which is equivalent to any major risk factor so stress reduction is very, very important." Stress can lead to plaque build-up in the walls of the artery, it can lead to microvascular dysfunction. Women have to take stress to heart. They have to address it and find a way to overcome it, whether it's tai chi, whether it's yoga, whether it's biofeedback, whether it's various degrees of mental relaxation, they have to address stress, address their emotions, and they have to learn to do it in a very positive manner.
Since 1984 more females die from heart disease than men do and the gap continues to widen. The reason for this is that the rate of mortality from heart disease is going down, just between various improvements in techniques and treatment modalities, but the rate is going down only 2.5% for females whereas for males it's gone down 17%. "More females die from cardiovascular disease than all of cancers combined as well as the top next 5 causes of deaths in total." One female dies every 33 seconds from cardiovascular disease in our country."
For more information:
http://www.clevelandclinic.org
http://www.Bing.com
http://www.healthtools.AARP.org
http://www.emall.nhlbihin.net
