Women & Heart Disease - Franciscan Health Podcast
Channel: Franciscan Health
Date: 2024-01-25

Franciscan Physician Network cardiologist Evyan Jawad, MD, leads a discussion focusing on heart disease and how it affects women differently than men, as well as healthy habits to promote your heart health in the Franciscan Health DocPod podcast.

Topics include:
✔️ Women and men have the same risk factors for heart disease, which include smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sedentary lifestyle, obesity and stress.
✔️ Women wear many hats in their lives: mother, daughter, wife, employee, and have may demands on their time. But they need to remember to take care of themselves, too, and that means taking a good look at their heart health.
✔️ Women should have a primary care physician to help assess their heart health and help identify preventive care steps she can take to protect her heart. This could include managing blood pressure and cholesterol. Nutrition, food preparation and weight also should be addressed when making positive steps toward better heart health.
✔️ Everyday stressors can also impact a person’s heart health. And, according to the American College of Cardiology, when not managed well, these stressors seem to impact women’s heart health more than men.
✔️ Women can adopt many good health habits when they’re younger to maintain heart health as they age.
✔️ Activity is important for women’s heart health. And that doesn’t mean running after the kids, doing errands—an “active” lifestyle. Women need to participate in regular, aerobic activity that gets their heart rate up.
✔️ When a woman reaches menopause, her risk of heart disease increases, and becomes the same as a man of the same age. Estrogen, and the lack of it, appears to be the reason.
✔️ Early good habits, including exercise, refraining from smoking, and good nutrition, can help a woman manage her heart health as she ages.
✔️ A good place to start monitoring your heart health is to take an online heart risk assessment. Franciscan Health has a free assessment at www.franciscanhealth.org/heartcare.
✔️ Like men, women usually will be referred to a cardiologist when she needs further treatment for irregular heartbeat (including atrial fibrillation), a worsening heart murmur (which could indicate valve disease), or is experiencing angina (short-term chest pain).
✔️ Many times, women experience different heart attack symptoms than men. They’re not as dramatic, like a massive crush or pain on the chest, but may be more subtle, such as extreme or unexplained fatigue. Sometimes a woman will have nausea, jaw or back pain that she doesn’t associate with a heart attack, but those also are signs.

Resources from Franciscan Health:
▶️ Easy Ways Women Can Put Their Heart Health First
https://www.franciscanhealth.org/community/blog/womens-heart-health
▶️ Heart Disease And Hypertension Risks In Black Women
https://www.franciscanhealth.org/community/blog/hypertension-heart-disease-black-women
▶️ Men's And Women's Heart Attack Signs Differ
https://www.franciscanhealth.org/community/blog/mens-and-womens-heart-attack-signs
▶️ Heart Scan
https://www.franciscanhealth.org/conditions-and-services/heart-care/heart-scan


Listen to the Franciscan Health DocPod podcast:
https://www.franciscanhealth.org/podcasts