Heart disease poses the greatest health threat that women in the United States face: One in every three women will die from it each year. But that doesn't have to be the case. Heart disease is not an inevitable part of growing older. In fact, if you reach the age of 50 without developing the major risk factors for heart disease, you can live your entire life without it, and your chances of dying from it decrease from 50 percent to a strikingly low 8 percent. The key to preventing heart disease is embracing a heart-healthy lifestyle—and the sooner, the better. In this groundbreaking book, the American Heart Association shows you how even the smallest changes can make a big difference over time to protect the health of your heart. The Complete Guide to Women's Heart Health explains how gradual and sustainable shifts in your routine, such as using just a little more than one percent of your time each week to exercise or losing just 10 percent of your body weight, can have a far-reaching impact on your health. With specific pointers on diet, exercise, and health care, this book shows you how to get past the common obstacles as well as how to make taking care of your heart easy and attainable for the busy life you lead, at every age. In chapters targeted for every decade of a woman's life from her 20s to her 70s and beyond, the American Heart Association gives women age-appropriate advice on healthy lifestyle choices and heart-health care. Additional information addressing issues of special interest to women and how those issues affect the heart include: · Smoking· Pregnancy· Menopause and hormone therapy· Aging· Diabetes and other health conditions With the latest guidelines on prevention, suggestions on how to work with your healthcare providers to maintain and improve your vitality, details on screening technologies, and facts about common diagnoses and treatment options, this book is the ultimate resource to help you—and all the women in your life—fight heart disease. From the Hardcover edition.

Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of both men and women in the US and Europe today. Over the last 20 years, many innovations in technology have allowed for improved therapies for heart attack and stroke and overall outcomes have significantly improved. Death rates from cardiovascular disease in men are declining.However, even with these improvements in care, death rates for women remain unchanged. This book will explore these gender disparities in care in depth — specific sections will be devoted to answering the questions of why they are occurring and what healthcare providers and women can do to effect change and narrow the gender gap in cardiovascular care.Ultimately, this book is designed to open the eyes of healthcare providers, medical professionals and policy makers — as well as potential female patients — and should serve as a “call to action” to promote better cardiovascular care for women. Through education, awareness and advocacy women worldwide will benefit, the gap will begin to close and better cardiovascular care can be provided for all.

Research on women's heart health is exploding. Nearly every week, it seems, the media report on new ways to prevent and treat heart disease in women—and it can be hard to keep track of it all. In this updated edition of “The Healthy Heart Handbook for Women,” we have put together all of this new knowledge in one easy-to-use handbook. This guide is part of The Heart Truth, a national public awareness campaign for women about heart disease sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and many other groups. (See “Getting the Word Out” on page 10.)“The Healthy Heart Handbook for Women” will give you new information on women's heart disease and practical suggestions for reducing your own personal risk of heart-related problems. You'll find out about a little-known form of heart disease in women and how to get it diagnosed properly. The handbook will also help you make sense of widely publicized research on the impact of a lower fat diet on women's heart disease risk. There is much good news in these pages, including new findings that people who avoid heart disease risk factors tend to live healthier and longer lives. The handbook will give you the latest information on preventing and controlling those risks. You'll also find new tips on following a nutritious eating plan, tailoring your physical activity program to your particular goals, and getting your whole family involved in heart healthy living. The handbook will also advise you on the warning signs of heart attack, as well as how to act quickly to get help.

Chronic diseases are common and costly, yet they are also among the most preventable health problems. Comprehensive and accurate disease surveillance systems are needed to implement successful efforts which will reduce the burden of chronic diseases on the U.S. population. A number of sources of surveillance data-including population surveys, cohort studies, disease registries, administrative health data, and vital statistics-contribute critical information about chronic disease. But no central surveillance system provides the information needed to analyze how chronic disease impacts the U.S. population, to identify public health priorities, or to track the progress of preventive efforts. A Nationwide Framework for Surveillance of Cardiovascular and Chronic Lung Diseases outlines a conceptual framework for building a national chronic disease surveillance system focused primarily on cardiovascular and chronic lung diseases. This system should be capable of providing data on disparities in incidence and prevalence of the diseases by race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geographic region, along with data on disease risk factors, clinical care delivery, and functional health outcomes. This coordinated surveillance system is needed to integrate and expand existing information across the multiple levels of decision making in order to generate actionable, timely knowledge for a range of stakeholders at the local, state or regional, and national levels. The recommendations presented in A Nationwide Framework for Surveillance of Cardiovascular and Chronic Lung Diseases focus on data collection, resource allocation, monitoring activities, and implementation. The report also recommends that systems evolve along with new knowledge about emerging risk factors, advancing technologies, and new understanding of the basis for disease. This report will inform decision-making among federal health agencies, especially the Department of Health and Human Services; public health and clinical practitioners; non-governmental organizations; and policy makers, among others.

This guide on heart disease in women is part of the Heart Truth public awareness campaign for women about heart disease sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.