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Chapter 17 |
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Women and Heart Disease
Although the heart attack rate of women under age 70 is lower than that of men, the mortality rate for women is actually higher. Women and Heart Disease The more risk factors a person has, the more apt he or she is to develop the disease. Risk factors include:
You may have heard that heart disease is a man's disease. Actually, that is not true. The statistics show that cardiovascular diseases are devastating to women, too. Men suffer heart attacks an average of 10 years earlier in life than women do, so men are at higher risk at younger ages. But as women approach the age of menopause, their risk of heart disease and stroke begins to rise and continues to rise steadily with age. In terms of total deaths, in every year since 1984, cardiovascular diseases have claimed the lives of more females than males. No matter how you look at the numbers, CVD is the number one killer of women and men. According to the American Heart Association: "These diseases currently claim the lives of more than half a million females every year. That's more lives than the next 14 causes of death combined, or about a death a minute." Diabetes is a more potent contributing risk factor in women than in men. If women have diabetes before menopause, it destroys their lower-risk advantage compared with men. And then there is stress as a risk factor. Try combining raising children with a career position that has a lot of responsibility, and significant amounts of stress are present every day. Women must recognize the seriousness of CVD and begin to take steps to reduce their risk. If they do not begin to manage their risk factors, the tragic and needless suffering these diseases cause will only continue to grow. For more information on CVD, check out the following internet websites: www.americanheart.org Current Management of Heart Attack Many treatments are available for heart-attack patients. Current Management of Heart Attack There are two commonly used procedures that have become the standard of care for patients with clogged coronary arteries. They are angioplasty and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. Angioplasty is also called percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA). This is a procedure where a catheter is inserted in a leg artery and fed into the heart. The catheter may have a rotating blade, burr, or laser to tunnel through the narrowing of the vessel. This usually involves a day in the hospital and no recovery time. A more invasive procedure is CABG surgery. This involves using a segment of a vessel from the leg and implanting it in the place of clogged coronary arteries. This procedure involves a week of hospitalization and a month of recovery. The public learned a lot about this procedure when talk-show host David Letterman underwent a quadruple bypass recently. Probably, the most publicized surgical procedure is an actual heart transplant. The first human heart transplant took place in 1967. In 1983, the major barrier to a successful transplant rejection of the donor organ was overcome with the approval of the drug cyclosporine. Today there are approximately 1,600 heart transplants performed each year with about 73% surviving four years or more. In fact, the first heart transplant recipient finished the 2000 Boston marathon. Yes, that is 26.2 miles that most people wouldn't dare attempt with their "first" heart! Patients who are considered for heart transplants include:
For more information on these topics, check out these internet websites: www.heart-surgeon.com/coronary-bypass.html |
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