The Heart Truth® is a national awareness campaign for women about heart disease sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The Red Dress®, introduced by the NHLBI in 2002, is the national symbol for women and heart disease awareness. Visit http://www.hearttruth.gov for information on women and heart disease. ®, TM The Heart Truth, its logo and The Red Dress are trademarks of HHS. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
My post title helped me to discover something,I normally would not look for. It is a New York Times article on,”The New Mystery of the Female Heart”.
Men and Women are different at heart literally.
Medical scientists are both perplexed and intrigued by a growing body of evidence that shows differences in the way women and men develop heart disease. The findings suggest there may be important biological distinctions between the sexes in the functioning and development of the heart and the cardiovascular system.
So far,virtually every study of methods to treat heart disease has been done in men,with the results assumed to apply to women.this is partly because the emphasis has been to reduce the rate of heart attacks among the middle-aged, and most middle-aged heart attack victims are men. Later in life, heart attacks are leading cause of death in women too.
The experts suggest that women should continue to follow established guidelines for heart disease prevention,such as avoiding smoking and high-fat diets and curbing high blood pressure.
At a meeting of the American Heart Association in Anaheim,California,the researchers reported women who have had children tend to have wider coronary arteries,which may help their protection from early heart attacks.
Another finding highlights the inadequacy of drawing conclusions from studies of men. Researchers have found that a high level of fats called triglycerides by itself portends heart disease in women,even in the absence of high cholesterol levels. This is not true of men.
Women have different symptoms of heart disease than men. Women have pains on and off for a long time before they have a heart attack; in men chest pains are more often a sign that heart attack has begun. Women who have heart attack are twice as likely as men to die within sixty days.
Diabetes seems to eliminate the protection accorded women in their earlier years, whereas it seems to have less effect on men.
Taken from New York Times.
Sabethville 