Please see the next page. Heart disease is a general term that covers all ailments of the heart, from heart attacks to congenital defects. This includes hypertension, atherosclerosis, stroke, rheumatic heart disease, and other disorders. When there is insufficient supply of blood to the brain, a stroke can result. The belief that heart disease is a male problem still lingers.
Younger women do have lower rates of heart disease than men the same age.
But this does not mean that young women never have heart attacks. And at younger ages, heart disease may be more dangerous for women than men. Women's risk after menopause rises sharply, and eventually, around the age of 70, equals men's risk. Nevertheless, survey after survey has shown that the majority of women worry about cancer, particularly breast cancer, more than heart disease. Heart attacks kill 236,000 American women annually, compared to 43,600 killed by breast cancer, and 59,000 by lung cancer.