Oakwood urges prevention, education to fight heart disease

Women are more likely to die from heart disease as men, but many potential victims don’t know their risks or warning signs.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), about 420,000 women die from heart disease every year—more than 10 times the number whose lives are shortened by breast cancer.

Essam Khraizat, MD, an OB/GYN with the Oakwood Healthcare System, said that many women don’t even know they are in danger.

“Some of it has to do with lack of awareness on part of the patient population,” said Khraizat. “It’s import that we educate men and women about the warning signs of hd in women.

Women are victim to the same risk factors as men: smoking is the big one, but obesity, diabetes, hypertension and stress all play a part. As they age and go through menopause, their risks increase, too, because the estrogen they produce when they are younger protects arteries from plaque build-up.

Women suffer from the same symptoms as men, too, according to Peter Mancini, MD, FACC, an Oakwood-affiliated cardiologist with offices in Dearborn and Brownstown. They can range from a pressure in the chest, pain in the arm or jaw, fatigue and shortness of breath. The symptoms are usually very subtle, he added, and most women don’t pay attention to them.

“Most women are tougher than men. They won’t really complain about their symptoms the way men do,” said Dr. Mancini. “It has very subtle symptoms, and women will sit on symptoms that are very subtle. It may be a pressure in the chest that doesn’t feel like the proverbial elephant sitting on it, but just a fullness in the chest that some people might think is indigestion.”

The best ways to avoid heart disease are to control your risk factors. Stop smoking, above all else. Lose weight if necessary and eat a diet rich with whole grains, vegetables and lean proteins. Watch your cholesterol and blood pressure and avoid stress or find ways to control it.

“Stress is something that impacts all of us,” said Dr. Mancini. “It’s not the problems we’re in, but our inability to cope with those problems. That has a physical effect: our body produces adrenaline, our blood pressure will increase, our heart rate increases. Our risk of heart disease increases when we have all this stress going on.

“Most women are more likely to blow off their stress or put other people’s stress ahead of their own,” he added.

If symptoms persist, seek medical attention—and don’t wait until they become obvious.

“People think when they’re having a life-threatening illness, they’ll be a life-changing event that’s going on,” said Mancini. “It’s not like that. It’s very subtle; it starts out as a very subtle pressure on the chest. They just won’t even recognize that it’s the heart to begin with. That’s the problem.”

For more information, visit Oakwood's Women's Heart Health Page.