These medications alleviate symptoms, reduce the need for hospitalization, and improve survival among CHF patients. Most significantly, Dr. Fonarow points out, ACE inhibitors can stop CHF from worsening and can even prevent it from developing in those at risk for the condition. Heart attack survivors, even those with no symptoms of CHF, are good candidates for ACE inhibitors. Surgical options are available for patients who don't respond to medications. But for many patients, surgery need not be considered.
Women have a ten times greater chance of dying from heart disease than from breast cancer.
As a matter of fact, heart disease is the number one killer of American women, claiming approximately 500,000 lives per year, notes Janine Krivokapich, M.D., director of the UCLA Adult Non-Invasive Cardiology Laboratory. Further, once a woman has heart disease, she is less likely to respond to therapy than a man, and is more likely to die after a heart attack. This may be because women tend to be older than men when they have heart disease and may have other medical conditions. Get in shape - lack of physical activity can contribute to obesity and decondition all the body's muscles, including the heart. Damage to the blood vessels occurs in several stages.