North Shore LIJ

February 13, 2012

Women, Know Your Heart Disease Risk!

Suzanne Steinbaum, DO

If you’re a woman, heart disease is your greatest health threat so knowing your risk is essential. 

How you live can have serious consequences. For instance, atherosclerosis (plaque in the arteries) builds up when there is damage to the lining of the arteries, frequently due to lifestyle. But high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, smoking, obesity, sedentary habits and stress are all factors we can control through diet, and exercise and stress management.

Family health history is also significant. The risk for cardiac disease goes up for women whose father had heart disease at 55 or younger or whose mother had heart disease at 65 or younger. The greatest risk is if a sibling has developed atherosclerosis or has suffered a cardiac event like a heart attack.

Prevention is key, since heart disease is often harder to detect and treat for women. That’s because women’s heart attacks often look different than the crushing central chest pain typically depicted in movies or TV. Instead, women may complain of shortness of breath, jaw pain, back pain, nausea, fatigue or even flu-like symptoms. Such varied symptoms may delay diagnosis and treatment.

Before symptoms can develop, get a diagnosis--especially if you are Full Post - to Detail View

February 07, 2012

Women’s Heart Attack Symptoms May Surprise You

Stacey Rosen, MD

Think heart health is a “men’s problem”? Guess again. In fact, more American women die from heart attacks (also called myocardial infarction or MI) than men every year. 

Almost everyone knows that severe chest pain, shortness of breath and light-headedness can signify an MI. While many women experience heart attacks this way, they are more likely to feel “atypical” symptoms than men.

Such atypical MI symptoms include mild chest discomfort that does not always feel like “pressure,” back or neck pain, increased fatigue or mild nausea. Sometimes these warning signs fade and return, which can falsely lower the concern that they may indicate a serious problem. So such subtle heart attack signals can unfortunately—and dangerously--go unheeded.

Recognizing the warning signs of a heart attack can save lives. Some heart attack treatments are only effective when used early, so fast action--calling 911 within five minutes of the onset of symptoms--can save a life. Even if you’re not sure if you are having a heart attack, check with a doctor immediately. Better safe than sorry.

See Dr. Rosen and other North Shore-LIJ experts in our new heart health video in the North Shore-LIJ Health System video portal.

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February 02, 2012

Tobacco Worsens Heart Disease

Patricia Folan, RN
Daniel Jacobsen, NP

If you are a tobacco user and have heart disease or an irregular heartbeat, high cholesterol or high blood pressure, there are some things you need to know.

Smoking causes many health problems for everyone who does it, but some of the most significant damage is to the heart and blood vessels.

• Heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women in the US.
• Even smoking as little as one cigarette a day doubles your chance of having a heart attack. The more you smoke, the higher that risk goes.
• Quitting smoking may have a greater impact on your heart disease than any other treatment or medication.
• People who continue to smoke after their first heart attack are much more likely to have another heart attack compared to those who quit smoking after their first heart attack.
• People with high blood pressure who use tobacco have worse heart disease than nonsmokers, even with treatment.
• Quitting smoking can help reduce your low-density lipoprotein (LDL cholesterol) level, also known as the “bad” cholesterol.
• You are more likely to suffer a stroke. And when a tobacco user has a stroke, the stroke tends to be more severe, with worse outcomes. 

It is important for anyone who uses tobacco to think about quitting. Quitting tobacco is the number one thing you can do for your health. This is even more important for someone with heart disease.

Quitting is hard, but with help from North Shore-LIJ’s Center for Tobacco Control and your healthcare provider, you can succeed. For free, confidential help, call 516-466-1980.

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November 15, 2011

Sugary Drinks Tied to Heart Disease, Diabetes, High Blood Pressure

Stacey Rosen, MD

Drinking two or more sugar-sweetened beverages a day may expand a woman’s waistline and increase her risk of heart disease and diabetes, researchers said this week at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2011. Women who had two or more sugar-sweetened drinks daily also developed high triglycerides and a high risk for Type 2 diabetes.

The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) surveyed the food frequency surveys in 4,166 African-American, Caucasian, Chinese-Americans and Hispanic adults 45 to 84 years old. The participants had no cardiovascular disease when the study began.

This medical research is more evidence that simple dietary choices can play a critical role in determining risk for cardiovascular disease. As few as two sugar-containing drinks put women at higher risk for heart disease, even when they do not gain weight. Full Post - to Detail View

October 21, 2011

Heart Disease in Women: Which Test Is Best?

Jennifer Mieres, MD

Heart disease due to coronary artery disease is the leading cause of death of women in the United States. Women with heart disease are more likely than men to have more complications and a higher death rate. So early, accurate diagnosis is critical to prevent death from heart attack.

Exercise testing remains the most widely accessible and relatively inexpensive method for initial evaluation of suspected coronary disease and for assessment of its severity. Despite its commonplace use, there are reports of limited accuracy in diagnosing heart disease in at-risk women. So should women take the plain treadmill exercise stress test or is there a benefit to the more costly test of exercise testing combined with cardiac imaging--that is, exercise myocardial perfusion imaging, also known as a nuclear stress test?

During the What Is the Optimal Method for Ischemia Evaluation in Women (WOMEN) trial, my colleagues and I compared the plain exercise treadmill stress test to the nuclear stress test to evaluate 800 women with symptoms suggestive of heart disease who could exercise. All women could walk on the treadmill for at least six minutes. Half had only the plain exercise treadmill stress test and the other half were evaluated with exercise stress testing combined with myocardial perfusion imaging.

The women were followed for two years and evaluated for heart attacks, continued chest pain and cardiac death. Trial results, published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, showed that an initial evaluation using only the exercise stress test provided two-year outcomes similar to those women who underwent the exercise nuclear stress test.

The bottom line: The plain exercise treadmill stress test should be the first test of choice for women with complaints suggestive of heart disease who can exercise for at least six minutes on a treadmill. Full Post - to Detail View