Heart  disease is the prevalent health threat to women across the globe now. This is an important information which women should know and guard against.
According to Internat-ional studies, heart disease used to be a men’s issue, but in the last few decades, women had closed up and over taken men in deaths from heart disease.
Cleveland clinic report states that heart disease affects women of all ages and ethnicities, making it the leading global cause of death in women. It further notes that, many women don’t know that heart disease is seven times deadlier than breast cancer.
Meanwhile, researchers have found many sex related differences in the cardiovascular system.
Studies revealed that women have smaller blood vessels and heart chambers, and the walls of their ventricles are thinner.
Also, women have fewer blood cells, as a result, women can not take in or carry as much oxygen at any given time and are prone to heart failure. More so, body position, like quickly standing up or lying down affect women more than men thereby making women more likely to have sudden drops in blood pressure or faint.
The hormones, Estrogen and Progesterone are dominant in women while Testosterone dominates in men. These hormones can impact many aspects of overall health.
Studies also have it that,in women, as Estrogen drops, they face a higher risk of blood clot, plaque in the arteries and high cholestrol which can lead to stroke.
Also,though sleep apnea (a potentially serious sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts) is common in both men and women, research has shown that a woman with sleep apnea without treatment have a higher risk of hypertension, coronary artery disease, stroke and a trial fibrillation. Therefore, treatment for sleep apnea is highly effective at reducing the risk.
An obstetrist and gynaecologist, Dr Kirtly Jones in a review stated that, the risk of coronary artery disease in preme-nopausal  women is much lower than the same aged men, but after menopause, women start to catch up from 60 years, they had passed men in the incidents of heart disease.
Dr Jones said that some changes in midlife that increase the risk have to do with the ovary, menopause and ageing.
According to him, “Estrogens keep arteries elastic, after menopause women  are at higher risk of high blood pressure. Estrogens also help keep good cholesterol a little higher for reasons we don’t understand, also diabetes is a little less likely before menopause and diabetes is a risk factor for heart disease”.
He also said that women as they get older gain weight in the middle and they exercise less, All these add to the risk of hypertension, diabetes and heart disease which combine with things that are related to the ovary. The risk factors include diabetes, overweight, obesity, poor diet, physical inactivity, excessive alcohol intake and smoking”.
According to reports published by the Harvard Health Publishing (Harvard Medical School) before menopause, a woman’s own Estrogen helps protect her from heart disease by increasing HDL (good) cholesterol  and decreasing LDL (bad) cholesterol. But after menopause, women have higher concentrations of total cholesterol than men do.
The report states that elevated triglycerides are important contributor to cardiovascular risk in women. Also, Low HDL and high triglycerides appear to be the only factors that increase the risk of death from heart disease in women over age 65.
Harvard Medical School research therefore, suggests that, for women, metabolic syndrome is the most important risk factor for having heart attacks at an usually early age.
These include large waist size, elevated blood pressure and glucose intolerance.
“Women who smoke are more likely to have heart attack as male smokers. For diagnosis and treatment, women have smaller and lighter coronary arteries than men do. This makes angiography, angioplasty and coronary bypass surgery more difficult to do thereby reducing a woman’s chance of recieving proper diagnosis and having a good outcome”, the report stated.
However, in another view, a senior researcher and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dr Erin Michos revealed that cardiovascular disease mortality is going up in younger women.
She noted that younger women have to advocate for their own health. That they need to know their blood pressure, chole-sterol and blood sugar levels and they need to make sure that they are getting treatment for these and other risk factors for heart disease.
“We know that women who have had history of preclampsia or gestational diabetes or preterm delivery are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease. Also, women who go through menopause early before age 45 are at increased risk of heart disease. There is still this misconception that women are at lower risk especially if they are before menopause. But this is not necessarily true”, she added.
She also said that stress is leading to an increase in risk factors, “Women are not able to take care of themselves, they are last on the list which is the problem”, she added.
Other studies explain that women now lead stressful lives than men by balancing corporate jobs with household responsibilities, noting that also more women now smoke and drink all sorts of alcohol making them more vunerable.
More researches show that stress may impact health negatively, making it important for women to understand their mind-body connection and how to focus on improving both their physical health and mental well being. However, the risk factors include high blood pressure, high LDL (Low density Lipoprotein), cholesterol and smoking.
According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States of America, symptoms of heart disease include full and heavy or sharp chest pain or discomfort, pain in the neck, jaw or throat or pain in the upper abdomen or back. These symptoms may happen while resting or doing regular daily activities. Other symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, fatigue, indigestion, heart burn, upper body discomfort, dizziness and shortness of breath, palpitations, swelling of the feet, ankles, legs, abdomen or neck veins.
To reduce heart disease, women should regularly test for high blood pressure, diabetes, quit smoking, check blood cholesterol and trigly-cerides, be more active, get at least 30 minutes walk, limit alcohol intake, manage stress levels by finding healthy ways to cope

By: Ibinabo Ogolo