Tag: cardiac risk factors

Dear Carolyn: “People can change for the better”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters  ♥  October 28, 2018

We know now that childhood trauma is strongly associated with chronic illness later on, including heart disease. As I wrote in a recent blog post about ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences), researchers warn us that scoring 4 or higher on the ACE test can predict a significantly higher risk of physical or mental illness as an adult. I was stunned when I took the test and saw that my own score was 4; I was well aware of my childhood experiences, of course, but I thought that only marginalized kids from desperately poor families were at high risk – and that wasn’t me! A history of psychological childhood abuse or neglect is not what we expect our doctors to ask us about – but this research suggests that maybe they should start.

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One response to that post really hit home for me. Marie (who prefers not to use her real name here) lives with a type of ischemic heart disease called coronary microvascular disease (as I do, too). With her kind permission, I’m sharing her childhood story with you as the latest guest post in my regular but very occasional series called “Dear Carolyn“:

Are you a heart attack waiting to happen?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

woman screaming-5 I was asked last year by a large U.S. publisher to review a new book written by a woman who had recently become a heart patient. I enjoyed reading the first chapter or two until I came to the New York author’s dramatic story of the actual cardiac event itself. The part that left me gobsmacked was not the event, but her abject shock and disbelief that she (of all people!) could be experiencing a heart attack at all.  The pervasive “Why me? Why me?” focus in this chapter clearly ignored a reality that the author had somehow chosen to gloss over: she’d been a heavy smoker for several decades.

Don’t get me wrong. Any cardiac event is indeed a traumatic occurrence no matter who and when it strikes. Sometimes, we truly have no hint about the cause of said event. And my immediate gut reaction was not meant to mock this author, or minimize her experience (which was awful). 

But I felt honestly surprised that she was surprised. Continue reading “Are you a heart attack waiting to happen?” →

Surprising trends in women’s heart disease

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

During the 1980s, the American Heart Association launched an advertising campaign that asked: “If your husband had a heart attack in bed tonight, would you know what to do?” Even the AHA thought heart disease was strictly a man’s problem back then.

Offering this valuable historical perspective, Kansas City cardiologist Dr. Tracy Stevens reminds us that physicians are still practicing medicine based on cardiac studies performed mostly on white, middle-aged men.
Continue reading “Surprising trends in women’s heart disease” →

Do you know the new heart health guidelines for women?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 3 Comments

Consumer Reports Health has released an alert about new guidelines for preventing heart disease in women, identifying certain risk factors that are especially important or unique to women, and some preventive measures that are not useful, including some supplements.

For example, the guidelines, provided by the American Heart Association, say there’s no reason to take supplemental doses of antioxidants such as vitamins C or E to prevent heart disease. Continue reading “Do you know the new heart health guidelines for women?” →