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What Every Woman SHOULD KNOW Take Your HEALTH to HEART this February and Every Month

Your New Year’s resolution may be a thing of the past already, but there is one promise every women should always keep: take your health to heart. Heart disease kills more women every year then all the cancers combined. Each February, women (and men) should go red for women: wear a red pin, put on a little red dress, tie a red ribbon in your hair. Last year,  First lady Laura Bush, The Heart Truth campaign’s ambassador, said this about the month: “when it comes to heart disease, education, prevention, and even a little red dress can save lives. I’m thrilled to see so many people wearing red or wearing their red dress pin. Nothing attracts attention like a red dress.” So tell your friends, tell your sisters, tell your mom: go red!

Elizabeth G.  Nabel, MD, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has these tips to help you help yourself and inform you about everything a woman should know:

Heart Disease Risk Factors

Risk factors are habits or conditions that increase the chance of developing a disease. Some risk factors, such as age (55 or older for women) and family history of early heart disease, can’t be changed. The modifiable risk factors for heart disease—which women can do something about—are:

• high blood pressure (hypertension)

• high blood cholesterol

• diabetes

• smoking

• being overweight or obese

• being physically inactive

 

For midlife women, the most common risk factors for heart disease in order of greatest prevalence include:

• overweight/obesity

• high blood cholesterol

• high blood pressure

 

Women should talk to a health care professional about their risks and what they can do to lower them, especially if they have multiple risk factors for heart disease. 

The “Multiplier Effect”

Many women don’t realize that their risk for heart disease significantly increases based on the number of risk factors they have. In fact, having just one risk factor can increase a woman’s chance of developing heart disease twofold. Having two risk factors increases the chance fourfold, and having three or more risk factors increases a woman’s chance of developing heart disease more than tenfold. 

 

Multiple Risk Factors At-A-Glance

• 32 percent of midlife women have one modifiable risk factor for heart disease

• 30 percent of midlife women have two risk factors for heart disease

• 17 percent of midlife women have three or more risk factors for heart disease

 

African American and Hispanic women, in particular, have higher rates of some risk factors for heart disease and are disproportionately affected by the disease. More than 80 percent of midlife African American women between the ages of 40-60 are overweight or obese, 52 percent have high blood pressure, and 14 percent have been diagnosed with diabetes. Some 83 percent of midlife Hispanic women are overweight or obese and more than 10 percent have been diagnosed with diabetes. 

Managing Risk Factors

Although heart disease is not curable, the good news is that it is never too late to take action to prevent it. Often, modifying risk factors is all that’s needed to significantly reduce one’s risk. In fact, by leading a healthy lifestyle, which includes eating a heart healthy diet, quitting smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, and getting physical activity, Americans can lower their risk for heart disease by as much as 82 percent. 

Tips for heart Health

• Don’t smoke, and if you do, quit. Women who smoke are two to six times more likely to suffer a heart attack than non-smoking women. Smoking also boosts the risk of stroke and cancer. 

• Aim for a healthy weight. It’s important for a long, vigorous life. Overweight and obesity cause many preventable deaths. 

• Get moving. Make a commitment to be more physically active. Aim for 30 minutes of moderate-intensity activity on most, preferably all, days of the week. 

• Eat for heart health. Choose a diet low in saturated fat, trans fat, and cholesterol, and moderate in total fat that includes whole grains, fruits and vegetables. 

• Know your numbers. Ask your doctor to check your blood pressure, cholesterol (total, HDL, LDL, triglycerides), and blood glucose. Work with your doctor to improve any numbers that are not normal. 

Questions to Ask Your Doctor

Getting answers to these questions will give women vital information about their heart health and what they can do to improve it. 

1. What is my risk for heart disease?

2. What is my blood pressure? What does it mean for me, and what do I need to do about it?

3. What are my cholesterol numbers? (These include total cholesterol, LDL or “bad” cholesterol, HDL or “good” cholesterol, and triglycerides.) What do they mean for me, and what do I need to do about them?

4. What is my “body mass index” and waist measurement? Do they indicate that I need to lose weight for my health?

5. What is my blood sugar level, and does it mean I’m at risk for diabetes?

6. What other screening tests for heart disease do I need? How often should I return for checkups for my heart health?

7. What can you do to help me quit smoking?

8. How much physical activity do I need to help protect my heart?

9. What is a heart healthy eating plan for me? Should I see a registered dietitian or qualified nutritionist to learn more about healthy eating?

10. How can I tell if I’m having a heart attack?

Women’s Heart Disease Statistics

Women often do not take their risk of heart disease seriously or personally. They fail to make the connection between the risk factors and their own chance of developing heart disease. 

The Heart Truth is:

• Heart disease is the #1 killer of American women. 

• One in every three women dies of heart disease. One in 30 dies of breast cancer. 

• Women’s heart disease risk starts to rise in middle age. 

• About 3 million American women have had a heart attack. 

• Two-thirds of American women who have had a heart attack don’t make a full recovery. 

• Nearly two-thirds of American women who die suddenly of a heart attack had no prior symptoms. 

• Only 57 percent of women are aware that heart disease is the leading cause of death among women. 

• Only 20 percent of women identified heart disease as the greatest health problem facing women today. 

Here’s more about how heart disease and its risk factors can affect women of every age:

Young Women:

• Lifestyle-related factors that increase heart disease risk are increasingly common among girls, teenagers, and young adults.

• Physical activity levels drop sharply as girls become teenagers. By the age of 15 or 16, 28 percent of Caucasian girls and 58 percent of African American girls report no habitual leisure-time activity.

• Almost 15 percent of girls ages 6-19 are overweight, and 15 percent of girls ages 12-19 are overweight.

• About 25 percent of girls in grades 9-12 reported using tobacco in 2003; about 80 percent of smokers begin before age 18.

Middle-Aged Women:

• At menopause, a woman’s heart disease risk starts to increase significantly.

• Each year, about 88,000 women ages 45-64 have a heart attack.

• About half of women who have a heart attack before age 65 die within 8 years.

• Heart disease rates are 2-3 times higher for postmenopausal women than for those of the same age who have not yet undergone menopause.

• Menopausal hormone therapy, with estrogen alone or with progestin—once thought to lower risk—is not recommended for long-term use to prevent heart disease. It is now even more vital that women take other steps to reduce their heart disease risk.

• The lifetime risk of developing high blood pressure for women aged 55 is about 90 percent.

• Beginning at age 45, more women than men have a total cholesterol over 200 md/dL—borderline high or higher.

Older Women:

• About 21 million women aged 60 and older have high blood pressure.

• Most women over age 65 have obvious heart disease or “silent” atherosclerosis (“hardening of the arteries”). In silent atherosclerosis, there are no symptoms but fatty plaques have built up in arteries. Lowering cholesterol is especially important to keep heart disease and atherosclerosis from worsening.

• Each year, about 372,000 women aged 65 and older have a heart attack.

• The average age for women to have a first heart attack is about 70—and women are more likely than men to die within a few weeks of a heart attack.

For Women with Heart Disease:

• About 6 million American women have coronary heart disease.

• Heart disease has no quick fix—even if a special procedure, such as an angioplasty, is performed, heart disease will worsen unless treated with lifestyle changes and medication.

• Twenty-three percent of women will die within 1 year after having an initial recognized heart attack

• About 35 percent of women who have had a heart attack will have another within 6 years.

• About half of women who have a heart attack will be disabled with heart failure within 6 years. Heart failure is a life-threatening condition in which the heart cannot pump enough blood to supply the body’s needs.

To learn more about heart disease and how to lower your risk visit  www.hearttruth.gov    or www.WomensHealth.gov