February 16, 2007

A heart month primer for women

By David Ong

	February is American Heart Month, as proclaimed by President Bush. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute uses this symbol in the Heart Truth campaign to spread awareness about women and heart disease. More information is available online: www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/hearttruth.

The UC Davis Women's Cardiovascular Medicine Program recently surveyed women to gauge their knowledge of heart health risk factors, and found that 98 percent knew about high blood pressure, 95 percent knew about cholesterol and 84 percent knew about diabetes. The latter, in fact, is a growing epidemic.

But, more significantly, fewer women knew their numbers: 60 percent knew their blood pressure, 31 percent knew their cholesterol levels, and 24 percent knew their blood sugar levels. Still fewer — 9 percent, 19 percent and 3 percent, respectively — knew whether their numbers were normal.

The UC Davis Women's Cardiovascular Medicine Program, one of seven national model women's heart programs, gathered the survey data through a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"Heart disease in women remains under-recognized, underdiagnosed and undertreated," said Amparo Villablanca, director of the UC Davis program. "Typically, a woman is older than a man when she exhibits symptoms, and they often are more subtle, making detection and diagnosis difficult. As a result, many women fail to receive the needed treatment that could save their lives."

According to Villablanca, women more often than men do not describe chest "pain," but "discomfort."

"The discomfort is often not described as the classic 'elephant on my chest,' but as less severe," she said. "Also, women more frequently feel some of the associated symptoms of a heart attack, such as dizziness, nausea, fatigue and shortness of breath — with or without chest pain. Lastly, silent heart attacks are more common in women."

Although many Americans may be aware that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States for men, they may not know that heart disease kills more women every year than men. Indeed, although breast cancer has been widely perceived as a woman's most feared enemy, more women in the United States die of heart disease than of all cancers combined.

"The key to reversing this trend lies in raising the awareness of and preventing the risk factors that contribute to heart disease -- and increasing awareness of new therapies that can lower the incidence of the disease," Villablanca said.

REDUCING YOUR RISK

Steps women can take to reduce their risk of heart disease:

• Know your numbers for cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and body mass index
• Exercise a minimum of 30 minutes a day, every day. A good way to achieve this is to walk 10,000 steps a day.
• Eat a healthy diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, and moderate in total fat; choose a variety of grains, especially whole grains; choose a variety of fruits and vegetables daily; choose and prepare foods with less salt; drink alcoholic beverages in moderation.
• Stop smoking.
• Know the symptoms and warning signs of a heart attack and stroke; call 911 if you experience symptoms of a heart attack or stroke.
Source: Amparo Villablanca, director, UC Davis Women’s Cardiovascular Medicine Program