Birth Control Pills
Studies indicate women who use high-dose oral contraceptives (birth control pills) are more likely to have a heart attack or stroke because of blood clots that form in the blood vessels. Taking birth control pills increases whatever risk you may already face from other factors, such as smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, or diabetes. If you are taking birth control pills, watch out for diabetes. Have your blood sugar checked regularly. Smoking and the pill don’t mix either. Together, they seriously increase the risk of heart disease. This risk increases with your age and the number of cigarettes you smoke. Quit smoking or choose a different form of birth control!
High Blood Pressure
Also called hypertension, high blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease. It is the single biggest risk factor for stroke. Even slightly elevated blood pressure doubles your risk of having a stroke! It also increases your risk of kidney disease. Of the 58 million Americans who have high blood pressure, about half are women. In fact, nearly half of all women over 55 have high blood pressure. The problem is more even common and more severe in black women.
What is High Blood Pressure?
When your heart beats, it pumps blood throughout your body through your arteries. Your blood pressure is a way of measuring the pressure, or force, of your blood against the walls of your arteries.
Usually, blood pressure is expressed with two numbers, such as 120/80. The first number, called systolic blood pressure, is the pressure when your heart beats. The second number, called diastolic blood pressure, is the pressure between beats. Depending on what you are doing, your blood pressure goes up and down over the course of each day. It is only considered high if it stays above normal levels for long periods of time.
High blood pressure is sometimes called “the silent killer” because people often have it without feeling sick. That is why it is so important to have your blood pressure checked each time you go the doctor. If your blood pressure stays at 140/90 or above, you have high blood pressure. You should however, have it checked several times before you are diagnosed as having high blood pressure.
During pregnancy, some women develop high blood pressure for the first time, or if they already have high blood pressure, it could become worse. If left untreated, this can be life-threatening to both mother and baby. Again, you may feel perfectly fine and still have high blood pressure. It is important to get regular check-ups while you are pregnant so your doctor can catch and treat this or any problem.
What Can I Do About High Blood Pressure?
High blood pressure can rarely be cured, but it can be controlled. If it is not too high, it may be controlled by losing weight, exercising, and cutting down on alcohol and sodium. (Sodium is not only found in salt but in many packaged foods, baking soda and even some antacids.)
If your blood pressure stays high, your doctor will probably prescribe medication along with changes in your life-style. The amount of medicine you take may be gradually cut down if you are successful with losing weight, exercising, and cutting down your alcohol and sodium consumption.
You may not like the idea of taking medicine for a long time, but the benefits are great. If it causes any uncomfortable side effects, ask your doctor about changing the dosage or switching to another medication.
Cholesterol
High cholesterol is another risk factor for heart disease you can do something about! Young women tend to have lower cholesterol than young men. Between the ages of 45 and 55, however, cholesterol levels rise faster in women than in men. After age 55, the gap becomes even wider.
Today, about one out of three American women have cholesterol levels high enough to pose a serious risk of heart disease. Anything over 240 mg/dL is considered high. Even “borderline” high (200-239 mg/dL) increases your risk of heart disease.
What is Cholesterol?
Cholesterol is found in all foods that come from animals. This means meat, eggs, and dairy products. Over the years, excess cholesterol and fat in the blood stream settle in the walls of the arteries that supply blood to your heart. This buildup makes your arteries more and more narrow, putting more stress on your heart. Ask your doctor or health professional to check your cholesterol at least once every five years.
There are two types of cholesterol: HDL, or “good” cholesterol, and LDL, or “bad” cholesterol. The good cholesterol helps remove the bad cholesterol from your blood, preventing it from building up in your arteries. A total “cholesterol profile” measures both types of cholesterol.
While changing the way you eat is the first and most important step in lowering your cholesterol, your doctor may also prescribe cholesterol-lowering medications. Even if he does, you should still continue your cholesterol-lowering diet because this may allow you to take less medicine over time. A low-fat, low-calorie diet, especially one in which you reduce your consumption of meat, eggs, and diary products, is still the safest treatment for lowering your cholesterol!
What About Triglycerides?
Triglycerides are another type of fat. In food, they are made up of saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated fats. The liver produces triglycerides of its own when alcohol or excess calories are consumed.
Studies have shown that some people with heart disease have high triglyceride levels. More research is needed, however, to see if triglycerides cause narrowing of the arteries or are merely associated with other risk factors. Extremely high triglycerides can also cause a dangerous inflammation of the pancreas called pancreatitis.
To reduce your triglycerides, doctors recommend a low-fat, low-calorie diet, increased exercise and no alcohol. Sometimes medication may be needed to reduce your triglyceride levels.
Diabetes
Diabetes, or high blood sugar, is sometimes called a “women’s disease.” After age 45, women are twice as likely as men to develop diabetes. This is usually “non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus,” or NIDDM. For some reason, the risk of heart disease and death are higher for women with diabetes than for men with diabetes.
More than 80 percent of people with diabetes die of some type of heart disease, usually a heart attack. Diabetes is associated with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, kidney disease, blindness, problems in pregnancy and childbirth, nerve damage, and difficulties in fighting infection.
There is no cure for diabetes, but there are steps you can take to control it. As with other conditions, losing weight and exercise can postpone or prevent the disease altogether.
Obesity
Being overweight is a proven risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Some studies also indicate “apple-shaped” individuals who have extra fat at the waistline are more at risk than “pear-shaped” individuals who have heavy thighs and hips. In other words, if you’re a woman whose waist is larger than her hips, you may be at greater risk for heart disease. There are many options for treatment of this condition, including diet, behavioral modification, and in some cases, surgery. For more information on obesity, click here.
Smoking
By now, everyone knows smoking is bad for them. But did you know. . .
- Depending on how many cigarettes a woman smokes each day, she is two to six times more likely to have a heart attack than a than a woman who doesn’t smoke?
- Smoking causes 80 percent of chronic lung diseases such as emphysema and bronchitis?
- Smoking also causes problems unique to women. Women who smoke are more likely to have trouble getting pregnant and are more likely to begin menopause early.
- If you continue to smoke while you are pregnant, you increase the risk that your baby will be born with a lower birth weight. You also increase your own risk of bleeding, premature delivery, miscarriage, and stillbirth. You even increase the odds of your baby later developing Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS—“crib death.”)
- While low-tar and low-nicotine cigarettes may reduce the risk of lung cancer, they do not eliminate it completely. They do not even reduce the risk of heart disease or any other disease caused by smoking. There simply is no “safe way” to smoke!
For more information about these and other women’s health issues, call UT Medical Group at 901-448-6610.
Other Resources:
| Information and links found on the UT Medical Group, Inc. web site are neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. If you think you may have a medical emergency call your healthcare provider immediately. |
