Heart Health Month Again, we are approaching the month of February which is Heart Health Month. Remember to visit the American Heart Association's website to find helpful suggestions to lower your risk of heart disease. To do our part, we should be aware of our blood pressure, our blood glucose and our cholesterol numbers. We should watch our weight with regular exercise and a balanced diet. We should avoid excessive alcohol and
stop smoking and try to reduce the stress in our lives. If needed, we should take medication to control our blood pressure, our blood sugar or our cholesterol issues. This is easier said than done but it can help reduce the risk of heart disease in our lives and help us live longer. Those women who get adequate folic acid in their diets and limit their use of products like ibuprofen also have a lower risk of heart disease. If we have family members under the age of 50 with heart disease and we have heart concerns, we need to be evaulated thoroughly sooner than later. Heart disease is the number one cause of death in women in this country. Many women do not know this and assume that cancer is the leading cause of death. Deaths from all cancers combined do not equal the numbers of deaths from heart disease. Much more research is being done regarding women and heart disease. In the past, it was assumed that women with heart disease would have the same presentation as men but our heart disease symptoms often present differently and the standard evaluation tests do not always find our heart disease as easily. We may present with chest pains as the first sign of heart issues like men do but we will not have cholesterol blockage on coronary angiography as often as men do and we still may have heart disease. The first signs of heart disease can also be different in women. Symptoms occur more often at rest, while sleeping or with mental stress. Men often have chest pain with exertion. We may also more often complain of shortness of breath, palpitations, dizziness and fainting, fatigue, sweating, jaw and back pain, indigestion and nausea. Most testing done on men for coronary aratery disease does not detect heart disease as easily in women. Some of the testing that better detects heart disease in women include coronary calcium score, exercise treadmill stress testing, stress echocardiogram, SPECT (stress single photon emission computed tomography), coronary CT angiography and cardiac MRI. Invasive coronary angiography should only be done if any of the above tests indicate heart damage or the patient is at significant risk for heart disease(i.e. has diabetes, is a smoker, has elevated cholesterol, is hypertensive, or is obese). New research on women and heart disease has helped us define this difference and will help us discover it sooner and treat our patients more appropriately. We hope that this gives you the most updated information on heart disease in women. If you are having any of these symptoms, or are at high risk for heart disease or have any questions, please contact us to begin an evaluation soon. |
