Dr. Mehmet Oz FEEL YOUR BEST
The Heart Hazard
Facing Women
Before I begin heart
surgery, I always glance
down at the patient and
wonder, “How did this
person get here, and what
could they have done to
avoid it?” The sad truth is
that the ailments I operate
on are usually preventable,
and in a perfect world I
would be out of a job.
Unfortunately I’m busier
than ever, and my patients,
increasingly, are women.
Heart disease is the number
one killer of men and wom-
en in the United States,
claiming the lives of more
than 600,000 people each
year, half of them women.
And yet many women—and
their health care provid-
ers—believe heart disease
is less serious in women
than in men. This is simply
not true. Studies show that
more women than
men die within a year
of having a first heart
attack ( 26 percent of
women 45 or older
versus 19 percent of
men); women are two
to three times more
likely than men to die
following heart-bypass
surgery, and more
women than men die
each year from conges-
tive heart failure.
dysfunction occurs in up to
half of all heart disease
cases in middle-aged
women with open coronary
arteries, she has found, and
may explain why many
women go undiagnosed,
since a lack of plaque build-
up makes the condition
harder for doctors to detect.
While new programs will
FROM TOP: ART STREIBER; ILLUSTRATIONS BY EOIN RYAN
MAKE THE CALL: DON’T MISS A BEAT
Every 90 seconds a woman in
the United States will suffer a heart
attack, and 200,000 will die. But
only half of all women say they would call 911 after
experiencing heart attack symptoms. Why? They
wouldn’t want to bother anyone or have the paramed-
ics see their messy house. So the U. S. Department of
Health and Human Services has launched Make the Call: Don’t Miss a Beat, a campaign to raise aware- ness about the need to call 911 if you suffer any of
these symptoms: chest pain, cold sweats, dizziness,
nausea, shortness of breath, fatigue, or upper-body
pain. For more info, call 800-994-9662 or visit
womenshealth.gov/heartattack. —Gabrielle Redford
help increase physician and
public awareness, you need
to take charge of your own
heart health. By midlife
(ages 40 to 60) almost one
third of women have two or
more modifiable risk fac-
tors—obesity, high blood
pressure, high cholesterol—
quadrupling their risk of
developing heart disease.
So how can you improve
your heart health? Eat a
healthy diet, take a 30-
minute walk every day, and
reduce stress. Start taking
care of your heart today,
so you never end up on my
operating room table. ;
Mehmet Oz, M.D., is a car-
diothoracic surgeon and the
host of The Dr. Oz Show.
FEBRUAR Y / MARCH 2012 17
