Protecting your mother's heart this Mother's Day

This is a Star atricle published Sunday 6th May

Protect her heart
By AUDREY EDWARDS

GET women to understand the importance of matters such as diet and exercise. That is one advice that American College of Cardiology president Prof Dr James T. Dove has, for combating the scourge of heart disease, which is the main killer of women worldwide.

Dr Dove was in Kuala Lumpur for the National Heart Association of Malaysia's annual scientific meeting last month.

According to the Women's Heart Foundation in the United States, 8.6 million women die from heart disease every year worldwide. This accounts for a third of all deaths in women.

Eight million in the US currently live with heart disease where 35,000 are under the age of 65 and 435,000 American women have heart attacks yearly (83,000 are below age 65 and 35,000 are under 55 years old).

Women below the age of 50 who suffer heart attacks are twice as likely as men to die. He lamented the fact that women were more focussed on breast cancer, which they perceived was more dangerous. Maybe one reason is age. “Every community has a story of a young mother who dies of breast cancer. So, it gets a lot of high profile play,” he said.

Cardiac disease, he reminded, tends to happen a decade later than men. “An older population is not quite as emotionally wrenching as it is when a young woman dies of cancer. The other issue is a person can have heart disease and look perfectly healthy,” he added pointedly.

Overall, the World Health Organisation estimates that cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the number one cause of death globally and an estimated 17.5 million people died from CVDs two years ago. This was 30% of all global deaths.

Of these deaths, some 7.6 million were because of coronary heart disease and 5.7 million were due to stroke.

More than 80% of CVD deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries. It also occurs almost equally in men and women.

“You have women living longer despite the illness, but the therapy they need to help them live longer is terribly expensive. “The issue is that patients will keep on coming back many more times before they die. It is an extra burden on the family,” he said.
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Yes prevention works, but its hard to change your diet or habits. But it's easy, just do drink your Bioslife, 10 minutes before each meal, to protect your heart