Women and Heart Disease This
Women and Heart Disease
This month's issue of Shape Magazine had an imformative article about heart disease and women. Heart disease is the number 1 killer of women in this country, yet I think many people (well at least I do) tend to associate it more as a male disease. It was a good reality check for me because my both my parents suffer from heart disease, which automatically puts me at a higher risk.
I wanted to link the article, but could not find it online.
I did find an interesting site, National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease.
Here are some of their facts:
Prevalence:
* 8,000,000 American women are currently living with heart disease - 10% of women ages 45 - 64 and 25% age 65 and over.
* 6,000,000 of women today have a history of heart attack and/or angina or both. Nearly
* 13% of women age 45 and over have had a heart attack.
* 435,000 American women have heart attacks each year; 83,000 are under age 65 and 9,000 are under age 45. Their average age is 70.4.
* 4,000,000 women suffer from angina, and 47,000 of them were hospitalized in 1999.
Mortality:
* Heart disease is the leading cause of death of American women and kills 32% of them.
* 43% of American women, or nearly 500,000, die each year of cardiovascular disease (heart disease and stroke).
* 267,000 women die each year from heart attacks, which kill six times as many women as breast cancer.
* 31, 837 women die each year of congestive heart failure, or 62.6% of all heart failure deaths.
more...
To highlight some of the tips on heart disease prevention from the Shape magazine:
-Eat good quality fats
-Exercise as much as possible
-Keep weight down
-Reduce stress