|
Course Sample:
Goals:
- Examine differences between heart disease in men and women.
- Differentiate facts from myths about heart disease in women.
- Examine the role of hormones in heart disease in women.
- Prepare health care professionals to work with women in identifying and decreasing risk factors associated with coronary heart disease.
Introduction
The American Heart Association has referred to heart disease in women as a "silent epidemic." Most people, and even many medical professionals, are not aware of how prevalent heart disease is in women. In fact, women tend to be much more afraid of dying from breast cancer, or another form of cancer, than of suffering a heart attack. When a woman feels a lump in her breast, her first fear is typically of cancer. However, if a woman feels a pain in her chest, she is more likely to assume it's indigestion, a muscle strain, or "nerves" than to think it's a heart attack. The following are commonly held myths about heart disease and the facts that dispute them:
MYTH:
Heart disease is primarily a man's disease.
FACT:
Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of death for women in the United States. Considering all ages, it leads to more deaths in women than men each year and accounts for almost 50% of the total deaths in women aged 50 and older every year. Since 1984, the number of deaths from heart disease for women has continued to outpace those for men-the difference in deaths is currently estimated to be over 35,000 per year.
The belief that it is a man's disease is in part related to the fact that, for many years, studies done on heart disease have involved primarily men. Historically, only about 10 to 25 percent of persons included in studies of heart disease have been women. Because heart disease tends to occur in men about a decade earlier than it shows up in women, it has probably been viewed as more important or prevalent in men. The first signs of heart disease generally make their appearance in men in their mid forties, while women are usually in their mid fifties or later when the first signs of heart disease appear. After women reach menopause, usually around age fifty, their rates of heart disease climb steeply and become roughly equal to that of men by age 65 to 70.
MYTH:
Women are more likely to die of breast cancer, or another type of cancer, than of heart disease.
FACT: Women are about 11 times more likely to die of heart disease than breast cancer. Heart disease claims more lives of American women each year than all forms of cancer combined. More than 479,000 women die of heart disease each year, compared to 245,000 annual deaths in women from all forms of cancer combined.
A recent Gallup survey for the National Center of Health Statistics (Price, 1995) found that 4 out of 5 women aged 45 to 75 years-80% of those polled-did not know that heart disease is the main cause of women's deaths. Worse yet, about 1/3 of the physicians surveyed did not know this either. When women were asked to identify the most common causes of death in women in the United States, the majority responded by estimating that almost 50% of deaths are due to breast cancer, with about another 20% due to other forms of cancer. They believed that less than 5% of yearly deaths in women were due to heart disease. The actual statistics are vastly different! Contrary to women's beliefs, about 34% of deaths in women are due to heart disease, with only 4% due to breast cancer and about 17% due to other types of cancer such as lung, uterine, and ovarian. Over a lifetime, a woman's overall risk of dying from heart disease is 23%, while the lifetime risk of dying from breast cancer is about 4%.
Fortunately, researchers are coming around, and there is an ever-growing focus on the topic of heart disease in women. This was prompted by the American Heart Association's educational campaign in 1989 on women and heart disease. Currently, there are several large, long-term projects underway exploring the risk factors for heart disease in women, as well as the best ways to diagnose and treat heart conditions in women.
What's Different for Women?
|
