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Go Red For Women
The Go Red Heart CheckUp is a free, online assessment tool created by
the American Heart Association to help women take charge of their
heart-health. Just enter your information into the Go Red Heart
CheckUp questionnaire at
www.goredforwomen.org, and within seconds you will get an
easy-to-read report that evaluates your risk of having a heart attack or
other cardiovascular event within the next decade.
Just
the Facts: Women and Heart Disease
Prevalence
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8,000
American women are currently living with heart disease -- 10% of
women aged 45 to 64 and 25% over age 65. |
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6,100,000
women are alive today who have a history of heart attack and/or
angina or both. Nearly 13% of women aged 45 and over have
had a heart attack. |
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440,000
American women each year have heart attacks; 74,000 are under
age 65 and 9,000 under 45. |
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Nearly
250,000 women survive heart attacks each year, and these numbers
are increasing. The number or women dying of heart attacks
decreased 34% from 1987 to 1996. |
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Nearly
4,000,000 women suffer from angina, and 50,000 of them were
hospitalized in 1996. |
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Coronary
heart disease (heart attack and angina) is the leading cause of
premature and permanent disability in the U.S. labor force (both
men and women) and represents 19% of disability allowances
granted by the Social Security Administration. |
Mortality
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Nearly
half (44%) of all American women die of cardiovascular disease
(heart disease and stroke. |
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Heart
attack is a leading killer of American women, proving fatal each
year for over five times as many women as breast cancer. |
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230,000
women die of heart attacks each year, and nearly 20,000 of these
women are under age 65. |
Who
is at Risk
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Risk
factors for women and heart disease include: a family
history of heart disease, diabetes, smoking, obesity, high blood
pressure, elevated cholesterol, lack of physical exercise,
post-menopausal age, and African American heritage. |
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The
age-adjusted rate of heart disease among African American women
is 72% higher than that for white women. African American
women aged 55-65 are twice as likely as white women of the same
age group to have a heart attack, and they are 35% more likely
to suffer from coronary heart disease, which causes heart
attacks. |
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70%
of African American women and 60% of white women have high blood
pressure, while 51% of African American women and 53% of white
women have high cholesterol (200mg/dL or higher). |
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Women
who have smoked and/or taken birth control pills are far more
likely to have heart attacks than women who do neither.
Smokers risk having a heart attack 19 years earlier than
nonsmokers. |
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Women
with diabetes are two to three times more likely to have heart
attacks. |
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Older
women have the highest rates of heart attack due to their higher
rates of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes,
obesity, and physical inactivity. |
Compared
with Men
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Within
six years of a recognized heart attack, 30% of women and 21% of
men will be disabled by heart failure. |
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Women
have heart disease and heart attacks later in life than men, and
rates for women increase substantially following menopause. |
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A
first heart attack will more likely kill a woman than a man, and
42% of women who have heart attacks die within a year compared
to 24% of men. |
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Women
are more likely than men to have a second heart attack.
Six years after a heart attack, 33% of women and 21% of men will
have had another heart attack. |
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Women
are almost twice as likely to die following heart bypass surgery
than men. |
These
statistics are from CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, the
American Heart Association, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood
Institute. For more information on women and heart health, check
out www.womenheart.org.
Heart
Attack Symptoms for Women
The
classic symptoms of a heart attack are a feeling of intense pressure
or fullness, or a squeezing or crushing pain in the middle of the
chest. But a heart attack can produce different, less-familiar
symptoms in some women. Learn these atypical symptoms and call
for help if you experience them:
- Burning
sensation or discomfort in the upper abdomen
- Difficulty
in breathing
- Nausea
and vomiting
- Weakness
or fatigue
- Profuse
sweating
- Light-headedness
- Fainting
Prompt
treatment is critically important and ideally should be started within
the first hour after symptom onset.
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