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Posted on Feb 13th 2009 8:00AM by Liz NeporentFiled Under: Diet & Weight Loss, Nutrition & Supplements
Liz Neporent is a diet and fitness expert and author of 12 fitness bestsellers. She regularly appears on national TV programs and is the president of Wellness 360, a New-York based wellness provider.
OK, last week I blogged about the crappy economy and how you can do a penny-pinching workout. Well I'm sick of talking about the economy! Aren't you sick of it too? So -- not that we won't be visiting that topic again anytime soon -- but I thought we could turn our attention to a subject you can actually do something about: Your heart. Yes, in honor of Valentine's Day (and National Healthy Heart Month), let's talk about the American Heart Association's cardio health stats for women, how they differ from the men's stats and what you can do to protect yourself against heart disease. I know Anne Hathaway's special thermo fat-blasting diet drink and Kate Hudson's amazing portable liposuction machine are more likely to be on your Hot List, but are these tools really going to save your life? No! Read on, please.One of the reasons that heart disease is under-diagnosed and under-treated in women is that women's heart attacks tend to unfold differently than men's. Rather than the classic crushing pain in the chest and numbness down the left arm that most people associate with having a heart attack, women often experience upper abdominal pain, pain below the chest or lower back pain. They may feel nauseated, short of breath or might experience unusual fatigue for days or even weeks leading up to an attack. Warning signs can be intermittent and often intensify during physical exertion. Women are more likely to delay seeking treatment than men because they don't connect what they're experiencing to a problem with their heart.
In 2004, The American Heart Association released its first ever heart attack risk categories for women. High risk women run a greater than 20 percent chance of having a heart attack in the next 10 years; this includes women with diagnosed heart disease, a history of heart troubles or those with type 2 diabetes. Women in the moderate risk category -- those with at least one risk factor or a propensity for poor health habits as I've outlined above -- have a 10-20 percent chance of suffering a heart attack in the next decade. Low-risk women display no risk factors and enjoy good lifestyle habits. Their chances of experiencing a heart attack in the foreseeable future are relatively slim.
Some experts speculate that perhaps the loss of iron during menstruation could be the reason younger women aren't as susceptible to heart disease as younger men or postmenopausal women. Lower iron levels in the blood may help limit damage to arteries by preventing the formation of artery clogging plaque. Though studies thus far are mixed on this theory, men who give blood (and so, mirror the iron-loss patterns of menstruating women) also have a lower incidence of heart disease. Whatever the reasons, by the time a woman reaches her golden years, all heart-health advantages disappear. Women in their seventies have an equal incidence of heart disease as their male counterparts.
I'd like to thank Dr. Laura Corio, MD, for making sense of this information. You can visit her on the web right here.
For more information about women and heart disease, you can also visit the American Heart Association.
All the best!
