A one in three chance of dying is not low risk
Just because women don’t have heart attacks earlier in life doesn’t mean they’re out of the woods. Men and women share the unfortunate distinction of heart disease being their number one killer. The only difference is when it will strike.
This goes back to a previous House Call, when I talked about the confusion about this topic for many women: It’s still largely seen as a man’s disease. An awareness campaign has been chugging along, but that cloud of confusion still lingers.
Let’s wipe away the clouds and take a closer look. It’s important and needs to be addressed, as the statistics bear out. To start with, women have just as high a risk of heart disease as men—they just carry that risk longer. Men tend to have heart attacks earlier in life, while women have them later.
What this means is that the time for active prevention is now, and that’s across the board—for everyone! Just because women don’t show evidence of heart disease doesn’t mean that they should feel less vigilant. Women have a nearly one in three chance of dying of heart disease, and currently 34 percent of women in this country are living with it.
So, it’s less a question of “if” than it is of “when”. The harmful changes in a person’s blood vessels that herald the start point of the disease can start at least 15 to 20 years prior to the disease declaring with symptoms, such as chest pain—or a heart attack.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the basic guidelines that I recommend you follow for an overall level of good health, and one that the American Heart Association has issued—they’re one and the same. Eat a healthful, whole foods diet, stay active, keep your weight in check as well as your blood pressure, and give up the nicotine habit.
That’s not so bad, is it? It’s a simple recipe, and will serve you well throughout your life.
So while the mainstream medical establishment bickers over whether or not supplements play a role in heart disease prevention or whether or not to use aspirin as a preventive, keep in mind that the recipe I described above is the best solution to better heart health. And the sooner the better.
Playing catch-up is never easy, or even very effective.
