A majority of women aren't aware that Cardiovascular Disease is the number one cause of mortality in women. The subject of heart disease is enmeshed in a series of myths that the American Heart Association wants women to know about.
Coronary heart disease is a man's disease.
Coronary heart disease is an epidemic in women as well as in men. The main difference between the sexes is that the disease typically shows up in women almost a decade later than in men, usually after age 50. By that time, women are often more concerned with cancer, arthritis or osteoporosis, and don't pay sufficient attention to the real threat of heart disease.
Women have an innate protection against heart attacks.
Women tend to have higher HDL (good cholesterol) levels than men do. However, although women ages 20 and older usually have lower total cholesterol levels than men of the same age do, as they approach menopause, things change. LDL (bad cholesterol) and total cholesterol levels in most women start to rise. Loss of natural estrogen may contribute to this increased risk of cardiovascular disease after menopause. This is a topic that requires additional research.
Women should be more concerned about other health problems, such as cancer, than heart disease.
Cardiovascular disease ranks far ahead of cancer or other commonly mentioned diseases as a cause of death. Heart and blood vessel diseases kill almost as many females each year as all forms of cancer combined.
If a heart attack doesn't kill you, you'll recover and be fine.
More men have heart attacks than women and have them earlier in life. However, women have lower chances of surviving them because they are older when heart attacks occur. Studies show that 38 percent of women die within a year of a heart attack compared with 25 percent of men. And, during the first six years following an initial heart attack, the chances of suffering a second attack are 35 percent for women compared with 18 percent for men.
Stroke randomly hits without warning. There is nothing you can do to prevent it.
The risk of stroke is strongly influenced by such lifetime habits as not controlling your weight, lack of physical activity and not controlling your blood cholesterol levels. You can reduce the risk of stroke by controlling high blood pressure, not smoking, having regular checkups and learning the warning signs of stroke so you can recognize a stroke in progress and get prompt medical attention if a stroke occurs. Immediate medical attention can often reduce the level of disability caused from strokes.
For more information consult: http://www.americanheart.org
The American Heart Association offers an online risk assessment test to measure your level of risk for cardiovascular disease.
