Heart Disease in Women

by Dr. Margaret Aranda

Heart Disease is the #1 Killer of Americans, both men and women. Heart disease includes heart attack, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, and heart disease from birth. Prevention is aimed at lifestyle changes to include exercise, eating immunonutritional meals with dense value, controlling hypertension, not smoking, getting cholesterol levels in check, and avoiding obesity, particularly abdominal obesity.

            In women, the risk of heart disease increases with age, particularly after menopause. Specifically, the loss of estrogen may change the vessel walls, allowing blood clots and plaque formation. The “bad” LDL cholesterol may increase over the “good” HDL cholesterol. Blood clots may also form from increased fibrinogen, which also puts us at risk for stroke. A 2012 CDC study showed that  African American women have a 40% risk of death than Caucasian women.

            We don’t want to see women dying of heart disease. Women are more likely to tolerate the pain and not complain about chest pain. Women are less likely than men to go to the doctor and take prescription pill for their heart condition. Women are less likely to take their medications like they are supposed to. Women are reluctant to go to the ER or call an ambulance for chest pain, but they’ll do it for their husbands. Women usually have vomiting, fatigue, shortness of breath, sweating, and discomfort of the neck, shoulder, or upper back. And when they do get to the ER, women are less likely to be treated as if they had a heart attack. It takes a longer time for the diagnosis to be made. Also, doctors seem less inclined to send a woman to angiogram and Cath Lab, which is needed before bypass surgery.

            So ditch those potato chips and discover Immunonutrition and omega-3-fatty acids, put on your walking shoes (after you ask your doctor), and break the statistics for women!

REFERENCES:

1.     http://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fs_men_heart.htm

2.     http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/ss/slideshow-visual-guide-to-heart-disease

3.     http://www.webmed.com/heart-hisease/guide/women-heart-disease

4.     http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12737673

5.     http://www.mayoclinic.com/health heart-disease/HB00040

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The World of the Walking

by Dr. Margaret Aranda 

She was a very ordinary girl, one you would never notice in a crowd. At twenty-six years old, her long brunette hair complimented her petite figure with a flair, and she smiled all the time. She woke up and no doubt, mind you. In thirty minutes flat, she would be turning the key and driving to her job.  

Yesterday, she was in The World. The World of the Walking. In The World of the Walking, everyone in this World can just get up and walk whenever they wanted to. In the little self-centered minds of most people, it was all taken for granted. The World of the Walking is where everything is. It is the standard. The World of the Walking means that you can get up and walk and perform the activities of daily living. She went about her business in The World of the Walking, making phone calls, sending texts, writing, writing, going to work, running errands, writing again, forgetting to stop for groceries. She went anywhere she wanted to, and timed everything out by looking at her watch or her cell, and simply decided where she had to be, and WaLa! she was there. The World of the Walking was a "painless" or "free" kind of Heaven that it seemed only the formerly disabled seemed to appreciate the most. Today, she has dysautonomia and can't stand up without fainting. Walking now seemed more like flying. 

Now see that there is a doctor confined to a wheelchair. He's in the World of the Walking, too. He is there on time to work every day. He has to push buttons and everything is hard, but he does it. The function level is high. So he may be mad at me, and rightfully so, but he really is in the World of the Walking, because he operates within their guidelines virtually every day. He gets out of bed. He's not plastered onto the mattress. He is only able to move from point A to point B because he's in the World of the Walking. So I learned that this is the goal: 

Stay in the World of the Walking.

But if you aren't in it, just do your best.

It's hard. But just do your best.