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A Woman's Heart

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THE ISSUE

Is the medical community negligent for failing to recognize women's symptoms of heart disease? Or are women to blame for putting everyone else's well-being before their own? Do women need a women's health specialty - the same way pediatrics encompasses all of children's health needs? Would it improve women's health by treating the whole person, rather than just focusing on reproduction? Is there a sex-bias in medicine?

FACTS AND STATS:

Heart disease kills twice as many women as all forms of cancer combined. (Centers for Disease Control)

Women who have a heart attack are more likely to die within one year than men. (National Institutes of Health)

Risk factors for heart disease include high blood pressure, smoking, obesity, diabetes, family history of heart disease, sedentary lifestyle, and stress.

36% of uninsured women and 13% of insured women do not receive needed care. (Commonwealth Fund's Commission on Women's Health)

Of the 500,000 hysterectomies done each year, one-fourth are unnecessary. (Health Research Group, reported in "Women's Health Alert")

QUOTES FROM THE SHOW:
"Heart disease is the number one killer of women." -- Lucille Coogen, Director of Nurses, Cardiovascular Fitness Center.

"You want to be the perfect whatever - wife, mother, carpooler. It's like, okay, if there's time left, maybe I'll take a walk, or maybe I'll work out, whereas now, I walk. Or I go to the rehab in the morning, and I do what I need to do for me. I don't think it's selfish; I think it's smart. And I'm kind of sorry I didn't do that sooner." -- Joyce Bond, heart attack survivor.

"If heart disease is [the leading cause of death] of a woman past the age of 65, and the second-leading past the age of 40, why is it that an aspirin a day helps my heart and in the 22,000 patients studied, there was not one woman?" -- Dr. Antonia Novello, former Surgeon General.

"Testing is done primarily on men, and so, by extension, a lot of doctors think that what happens to men will also happen to women, and that kind of transference is wrong....And so what you do is you create therapies that are good for one sex, but not necessarily good for the other." -- Irene Natividad, political commentator.

"Don't ever tell me that I am menopausal and I have a problem with my life. I have a change of attitude, thirty good years to go, and by God, I'm going to live them the best I can, and this government owes it to me." -- Dr. Antonia Novello, former Surgeon General.

RESOURCES:
National Institutes of Health, Office of Research on Women's Health. (301) 402-1770.

American Heart Association. 1-800-AHA-USA1.

National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations, 1180 Avenue of the Americas, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10036.

The Boston Women's Health Book Collective, P.O. Box 192, West Somerville, Massachusetts 02144. (617) 625-0271.

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