Category: Women's cardiac risk factors

– posts here focus on how to address your risk factors to help prevent heart disease

Finally! The truth about what causes women’s heart attacks!

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 1 Comment

food diet apple

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥   @HeartSisters

Finally, scientists have definitive numbers proving the clear link between our diet and heart attacks.  It’s a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than North Americans do.

2. Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than their North American counterparts.

3. Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than North Americans.

4. Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than North Americans.

5. Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats, and suffer fewer heart attacks than North Americans.

CONCLUSION:

Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

I laughed out loud when I first heard this, but it also, sadly, reinforces for me the dilemma of interpreting all cardiac research. Continue reading “Finally! The truth about what causes women’s heart attacks!” →

Live long and prosper – by eating responsibly

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 2 Comments

Kentucky cardiologist Dr. Melissa Walton-Shirley is worried about what she calls our ‘obesity epidemic’, and she points to the unlikely inspiration of Star Trek to address this epidemic:  the very Vulcan-like philosophy that “logic must prevail”.

Dr. Walton-Shirley thinks that North Americans have a bizarre obsession with food instead of a healthy appreciation of it.

“Our obsession with overloaded plates of value-meal goodies has led to an epidemic of diabetes, sleep apnea, hypertension, stroke, heart disease and death – while the medical community as a whole has largely stood by and done nothing.”

Continue reading “Live long and prosper – by eating responsibly” →

Why are heart patients who smoke leaving hospital still smoking?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 37 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

If you ever needed a swift smack upside the head to convince you to finally stop smoking once and for all, you’d think that a heart attack would do it.

Hospitalized survivors, shocked and traumatized, are already lying there in the cardiac ward unable to light up, and certainly prohibited from smoking anywhere inside the hospital buildings. In my town, smoking is banned on all hospital grounds, thus requiring a long walk clear across the street to huddle near the bus stop – if the patient is mobile enough – with the attractive hospital gown flapping in the wind behind. These smokers are already well underway, whether they’d planned it or not, to quitting cold turkey. So why are they starting up again by the time they get home?

What many non-smokers may not understand about this question is that smokers generally LOVE their smokes. They love the longstanding associations between a cigarette and their daily routines. They love that first early morning cigarette. Or coffee breaks with workmates. On the phone. At parties. That last smoke of the day out on a quiet porch.

Smokers on the cardiac ward already know that smoking is likely what landed them in that cardiac ward in the first place. Just in case, here’s why smoking is so damaging to the heart: Continue reading “Why are heart patients who smoke leaving hospital still smoking?” →

Is family stress hurting your heart?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 3 Comments

woman stress home

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

We now know that chronic stress is a very real risk factor in developing heart disease. And stress in the home – where, ironically, we all long to find a safe place to fall – can be the most insidious and difficult to address, especially for families with children still at home, and for women suffering from Type E personalities:  “Everything to Everybody”. Sound familiar?  Continue reading “Is family stress hurting your heart?” →