Practical Practitioner
By: Pamela Egan, FNP-C CDE
Women need to increase their awareness about heart disease
In 2000, more than 363,000 American women died of heart disease – the leading cause of death, according to the Center for Disease Control. By comparison, 42,300 women in the United States died of breast cancer that year.
We religiously do Pap smears and breast checks annually, yet women are dying in much greater numbers from heart disease.
We’re seeing type 2 diabetes in children, and heart disease in younger and younger people. There has been a general lack of interest in heart health. Many women suffer from heart attacks without even knowing it.
A woman may feel discomfort in her upper abdomen and think she is having indigestion, when in fact she is having a heart attack.
She may make an appointment with her clinician a week later, when in fact, she should be going to the emergency room. Fatigue or shortness of breath also can be signs of a silent heart attack in a woman.
Women should make every effort to reduce their risk factors to delay or altogether avoid silent heart attacks. Increasing awareness and developing healthy lifestyles that promote strong hearts will have an overall effect on lifespan.
Since we’re talking about lifestyle changes, it’s interesting to note that HealthPartners, a leading health maintenance organization, is offering incentives to its members to join a fitness or weight loss program.
The Bloomington-based nonprofit announced Thursday it will pay part of the health club monthly dues for its members who work out at least eight times a month.
HealthPartners members can visit Northwest Athletic Club locations and the YMCA in Minneapolis or Saint Paul to qualify for the subsidies. Members who participate in the Weight Watchers online program are eligible for a reduced subscription fee.
HealthPartners said subsidizing members’ athletic activities makes sense. In its press release announcing the program, it quoted a study by its research foundation in October showing that older adults who increase their physical activity to 90 minutes a week could reduce health care costs by more than $2,000 per year.
Are their any HMO’s locally offering such a deal?
Finally, high daily doses of vitamins E and C taken together reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease among elderly people. Taken in supplement form, and not in a lower-dose multivitamin, the vitamins’ anti-oxidant properties appear to offset the buildup of so-called free radicals that are believed to damage cells and lead to the debilitating brain disease.
Alzheimer’s gradually robs millions of people of their memories and ultimately of their mental faculties. Roughly 5 million Americans suffer from the disease, and the risks of developing it increase markedly with age.
The 4,740 participants in the five-year study were aged 65 or older when the study began in 1995.
Taking a lower-dose multivitamin or one of the two vitamin supplements taken alone did not have the protective effect.
Vitamin E supplements contain up to 1,000 international units and most vitamin C supplements between 500 and 1,000 micrograms.
High-dose vitamin supplements are rarely toxic and could have wide-ranging health benefits, the report said.
This article was originally published January 26, 2004 in The St. Tammany News.
PamelaEgan.com > Health Articles > Women’s Health
