To Your Health: IBC

We hope to continue providing medical topics of interest to our members. Please submit your topics or questions and we’ll do our best to answer them with credible, “evidence based” information which is reviewed by medical doctors. Also, if you have specific/personal questions regarding military or VA health care in general, please send those in and if we don’t have the answers, we will help you to get in touch with those who do.

For this column, we thought we’d look at the New Year – how many of your New Years’ Resolutions had something to do with improving fitness or health? Did you see “National Wear Red Day” on February 2nd? Many women think that the #1 cause of death for women is Breast Cancer or accidents. However, the #1 killer of women in America is Heart Disease. In fact, Heart Disease kills more women every year than all cancers combined. A woman is 4-6 times more likely to die of a heart attack than breast cancer. Many health care organizations are trying to spread this word, and help Americans focus on combating this. So, what can you do to improve your Heart Health?

First, know the risk factors, and what you can do to minimize yours. Proven risk factors include:

w	Smoking (causes ½ of all heart attacks in women under 50)

w	High Blood Pressure (caution 120-130/80-90; >140/90 should be treated)

w	High Cholesterol (goal levels have decreased)

w	Diabetes (get your blood sugar checked!)

w	Over ideal body weight (BMI>30, apple vs pear shape)

w	High fat diet (try to keep <30% of caloric intake)

w	Sedentary lifestyle (aim for 30 minutes of moderate exercise at least 4 days a week!)

w	Age (did you know at age 65 women & men’s heart disease risk are equal?)

w	Family History of Heart Disease (father/brother under 55, mother/sister under 65)

Second, talk to your doctor about specific recommendations for you. (Should you be on a baby aspirin a day?)

And, last, you can research information online. Learn more about what you (and your family) can do to improve heart health. Here are some recommended online resources:

familydoctor.org/287.xml
goredforwomen.org
americanheart.org
womensheartfoundation.org