In recognition of American Heart Month, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and its heart disease awareness campaign — The Heart Truth — is reminding all American women that heart disease prevention remains critically important, despite that fact that awareness is at an all time high. More women than ever know that heart disease is their leading killer, yet millions of women are at risk, at increasingly younger ages.
Even with increased awareness, 80 percent of midlife women (ages 40 to 60) still have one or more of the modifiable risk factors — high blood pressure, high cholesterol, overweight/obesity, physical inactivity, diabetes, and smoking. Sixty percent of younger women, ages 20-39, have one or more of these risk factors. Recent data show high rates of overweight/obesity in younger women, which may lead to higher rates of heart disease in later years.
It seems to be that not only unhealthy lifestyle habits of so many young women, here in particular smoking, but the increasing stress level caused by the difficult economy and all present and applied high-tech around us contributes to the increase of heart issues. Although stress is hard to avoid, there are ways to learn about it’s negative impact on our health and how to manage it better. I believe the medical community has not realized enough the importance of the above said, although the WHO has openly declared stress as the silent killer of the 21st century.