Heart Disease & Stroke: Equal Opportunity Killers

• Click here to find out how walking saved one local woman's life...    

Knowledge Coupled with Action is Power 

   Heart disease and stroke are not just problems for the middle-aged and elderly. Women in their prime, between 24 and 44 years-old, are finding these killers knocking, unexpectedly, at their door.  

      Women have some interesting risk factors for heart disease and stroke. They including smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, physical inactivity, excess weight and obesity, diabetes, increasing age, heredity and race, gender and prior heart attack or stroke. If you have any of these risk factors you need to…

• Stop smoking — your risk drops dramatically when you kick the habit.

• Have LDL cholesterol levels checked often and reduce risk by eating less saturated fat and cholesterol.

• Get up and move. Exercise, even moderate exercise, decreases risk greatly.

• High Blood Pressure has no warning signs. Get regular blood pressure tests, especially if your family history shows you could be genetically at-risk. Eat less salt and sodium. Read labels.

• Do not carry extra weight. Women 20 or more pounds overweight are at higher risk.

• Control your diabetes if you have it.

• Know that oral contraceptives become a higher risk when coupled with smoking or high blood pressure.

• Take medicine if your doctor prescribes it and ask about Aspirin Therapy.

  Warning Signs of Heart Attack

• Uncomfortable pressure, fullness, squeezing or pain in the center of chest that lasts more than a few minutes, or goes away and comes back.

• Pain that spreads to the shoulders, neck or arms.

• Chest discomfort with lightheadedness, fainting, sweating, nausea or shortness of breath.

• Atypical chest, stomach or abdominal pain.

• Nausea, dizziness (no chest pain)

• Unexplained anxiety, weakness, or fatigue. Palpitations, cold sweats or paleness.

  Warning Signs of Stroke

• Sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body.

• Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding, trouble swallowing.

• Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes.

• Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination.

• Sudden, severe headache with no known cause.

  Not all symptoms will occur in every heart attack or stroke

  IF YOU NOTICE ANY OF THESE SIGNS, CALL 911 
IMMEDIATELY AS EVERY SECOND COUNTS!  

Lincoln Hospital, Vista Manor and all three North Basin
Medical Clinics are equipped with Automatic External
Defibrillators for emergency use. 

Test yourself. If you check 2 or more boxes, talk to your 
healthcare provider, please. 

• Age & Sex: You are a woman over 55, or have passed through menopause, or have had your ovaries removed and are not taking estrogen. 

• Family History: Your Father or brother had a heart attack before age 55, or your mother or sister had one before 65, or your mother, father, sibling or grandparent had a stroke.

• You smoke, or live or work with people who smoke regularly.

• Your total cholesterol is 220 mg/dL, or you don't know your HDL cholestorel level.

• Your blood pressure is 140/90 mm HG or higher, or a health professional has said your blood pressure is too high, or you don't know your blood pressure. 

• Your level or physical activity is less than 30 minutes on most days. 

• You are overweight by 20 pounds or more for your height or build. 

• You have diabetes, a fasting blood sugar or 126 mg/dL or greater, or you need medicine to control blood sugar.

• You have medical history of coronary heart disease or atrial fibrillation, or have had a heart attack. 

• You've had stroke or have carotid artery disease, a mini-stroke, or have a disease of the leg arteries, a high red blood cell count or sickle-cell anemia.

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• Deadly Epidemic: heart attack and stroke in women

• Does inflammation contribute to heart attack?

• Clinics equipped with defibrillators

• Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm – a preventable cause of death

• Go Red for Your Heart - Blood Pressure Basics

More Information on Heart Disease or Stroke?

1-800-AHA-USA1 or www.americanheart.org
1-888-4STROKE or www.strokeassociation.org