THE BIGGEST SECRETS ABOUT WOMEN AND HEART DISEASE
Your chest feels tight. You’re finding it hard to breathe. You don’t
know whether you’re going to be sick or pass out—or both. Are you having
a heart attack?
Heart disease claims about 500,000 women’s lives a year in the United
States—nearly one death every minute. Most heart attacks and heart-related
deaths occur in women over age 65, but each year more than 9,000 women
under age 45 suffer a heart attack. Are you about to become the next victim?
Do you know the signs? What can you do to prevent a heart attack?
Test your knowledge of heart disease by taking this quiz. The answers
might urge you to implement a few good changes in your life.
1. Heart disease is the leading killer of men. The following is the
leading killer of women:
(A) Stroke
(B) Breast cancer
(C) Heart disease
(D) Ovarian cancer
2. Women and men suffer similar symptoms when it comes to heart attacks,
including angina (squeezing chest pain), unusual fatigue, shortness of
breath and nausea.
(A) True (B) False
3. At the first sign of a heart attack, you should:
(A) Chew and swallow acetaminophen (Tylenol)
(B) Lie down with your hands above your head
(C) A and B
(D) None of the above
4. Which of the following are risk factors you can change:
(A) Hypertension and high cholesterol
(B) Diabetes
(C) A and B
(D) None of the above
ANSWERS
1. C. Heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women.
Fewer than half of American women, however, are aware that heart
disease, not breast cancer, is their greatest health threat.
2. False. Women are more likely to experience atypical symptoms and
may not have the classic chest pain. Instead, they may experience only
shortness of breath or fatigue upon exertion. These atypical symptoms may
go largely unnoticed by a busy, overworked woman.
3. D. First, get help by calling 911. Then chew and swallow a whole
aspirin (unless allergic to it), and get to a hospital immediately.
4. C. Age and a family history of heart disease are two risk factors
you cannot change, but high blood pressure and cholesterol can be controlled
through diet, exercise and drugs when necessary. Diabetes can also be controlled
to reduce your risk of heart disease. An estimated 45 percent of diabetic
women develop significant coronary heart disease. Other risk factors you
can change include smoking, obesity and physical inactivity.
Excerpted from the 2006 Johns Hopkins White Paper: Heart Attack
Prevention, copyright Medletter Associates, LLC
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