The Facts About Heart Disease for Women
The Facts
- Heart disease is the number one killer of women.
- Heart disease refers to the blockages of the arteries, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz.
- Dr. Judith Reichman says that it is estimated that one out of every two women will die from heart disease.
- Heart disease kills ten times more women than breast cancer each year, and more than all other cancers combined.
- One in ten women aged 45 to 64 already suffers from some form of heart disease.
- According to one study, nearly one fourth of women who died of heart disease were between the ages of 35 and 44.
- Many of the symptoms of heart disease are often ignored, unrecognized or misdiagnosed, because women's symptoms are completely different than men's. bullet
- Women under the age of 75 are twice as likely to die than men, because both female and male doctors often misdiagnose the symptoms, according to Dr. Judith Reichman. bullet
- According to Dr. Reichman, women have heart attacks five to ten years later than men, because women's estrogen levels decrease over time and as women become menopausal, they lose some of their protection against heart disease. bullet
- Dr. Mehmet Oz says that women's hearts are physically different than men's. He says that if you look at the arteries that provide blood flow to the heart muscle, men's are like rigid pipes, while women's are soft. Only 30 percent of women who have heart attacks have calcium in their arteries, whereas 90 percent of men who have heart attacks have calcium in their arteries. Therefore, heart disease is a different disease for women than it is for men.
- African American women are more at risk for heart disease than Caucasian women. And, if an African American woman has a heart attack, she is 69 percent more likely to die of that heart attack than a Caucasian woman, according to Dr. Judith Reichman. bullet
- By the time African American women are in their late 60s, 79 percent will have developed high blood pressure, according to Dr. Judith Reichman.
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