Category: Women's cardiac risk factors

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

Size matters – but not in coronary artery blockages

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

It’s not about your cholesterol numbers, and it’s not even about big fat blockages clogging up your coronary arteries. Did you know that inflammation is likely the culprit in most heart attacks? As cardiologist Dr. John Mandrola neatly describes it:

“Heart disease is about inflammation.  The same mechanisms that cause the throat to swell from an infection, the skin to redden after an insect bite, and a scar to form after a cut are what cause heart problems.”

Studies continue to show demonstrable links between heart disease and other inflammatory conditions.
 Continue reading “Size matters – but not in coronary artery blockages” →

Women and statins: evidence-based medicine or wishful thinking?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 11 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Are you:

A.  a healthy woman who’s never had any issues with your heart, but . . .

B.  you know heart disease is the #1 killer of women, so . . .

C.  you’re wondering what you can do to help prevent B from happening to you?

Warding off a first heart attack for a person with no history of heart disease is what physicians call primary prevention.  Warding off another heart attack for a person who already lives with heart disease is called secondary prevention.  It’s also what respected cardiologists representing both the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology are now telling us can be effectively accomplished by taking one of the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins.

But it turns out that many other equally-respected cardiologists don’t believe that taking a powerful drug every day for the rest of your natural life for a disease you don’t even have is appropriate for primary prevention – particularly in women.  Continue reading “Women and statins: evidence-based medicine or wishful thinking?” →

The cure myth

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 24 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

So a bunch of us, all heart disease survivors, were enjoying breakfast together one morning in Rochester, Minnesota. One of the women at our table looked up from her coffee and announced that, yes, even though she had survived a heart attack and subsequent open heart surgery, she didn’t really have heart disease anymore “you know, like the rest of you do.”

I looked at her and replied, in my most charitable tone:

“Honey, nobody gets invited to attend the WomenHeart Science & Leadership Symposium for Women With Heart Disease here at Mayo Clinic unless they actually have, you know, heart disease.”  Continue reading “The cure myth” →

Are you a mindful eater?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

I’m glad that the movie theatre is dark while I’m eating my popcorn.  I say this because I once had a traumatic experience watching the man sitting in front of us gobble down his gigantic tub of popcorn before the house lights were dimmed for the film. He was shovelling in that corn like there was no tomorrow. It was mesmerizing to see. There was a certain hypnotic poetry in the fluid piston-like rise and fall of one arm as he swiftly filled and then emptied each fistful. His mouth never seemed to shut – even as he somehow managed to chew and swallow while escaping kernels flew about his head and shoulders. Now that’s mindless eating for you. And good Lord, is that what I look like, too?!

But psychologists who study such things tell us that mindful eating, on the other hand, can be a useful method for aiding behaviour change to help with healthier eating and weight loss. Even better, focused attentive eating habits are something that we can practice on our own. So says Dr. Andrew Schwartz, writing in Consumer Reports last month. Here’s what else Dr. Schwartz had to say:   Continue reading “Are you a mindful eater?” →