Yes Love MD on Breast and heart disease Re: Women Are ..Heart Disease Risk

[Guest guest]

Hello and others,

a very well known doctor in the USA who has written a lot on Breast

Cancer and the Politics of Health care has been researching this

problem with women and heart disease for over 20 years.

Asprin a day works for men, it is deadly for women. I could only pull

up one of her URL's.

http://plato.acadiau.ca/courses/pols/Grieve/health/Dr%20Love_review_.html

Also the Boston Women's Healthbook collectiv/Our Bodies Our Selves

(ourbodiesourselves.org) newest edition speaks to the issue of the

hidden heart disease.

This is out of the small groups of the CFS community. This has been

in mainstream medicine for over 30 years, however the pharmaceutical

companies still say to women, " take asprin, usually Bayer....don't

risk heart disease " /

The fact is that the aspirin makes women worse and kills when taken on

a regular basis.

This is the only book in the USA that speaks to the issue of ME and

the political malfunction in the CDC when they refused to acknowledge

ME and called the 1984 outbreak at incline village, CFS. That is

where CFS was first labled.

So medicine is political, unfortunately.

meghan

--

- In CFAlliance , surpriseshan2@... wrote:

>

> In light of especially Cheney's

> ( http://www.dfwcfids.org/medical/cheney/heart04.htm )

> Myhill's ( http://www.cfids-cab.org/MESA/DrMyhill-373.pdf &

> http://www.drmyhill.co.uk/article.cfm?id=373 ) & Peckerman's

> ( http://www.cfids-cab.org/MESA/Lerner.html ) as well as Rich Van

Konynenburg

> (

http://listserv.nodak.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0509c & L=co-cure & P=1585 )

> cardiomyopathy comments, among others, regarding CFS, ME, & FM etc ....

> I thought this was interesting.

> I seem to have been collecting these articles. The forth url

above has

> several links on it regarding this issue.

> Blessings

> Shan

>

> Women Are Said to Face Hidden Heart Disease Risk

> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/01/health/01heart.html?_r=1 & th & emc=th &

> oref=slogin

> By DENISE GRADY

> Published: February 1, 2006

>

> Women are more likely than men to have a hidden type of coronary

disease (

>

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/hear\

t

> disease/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier ) in which their heart

muscle is

> starved for oxygen even though their coronary arteries look clear

and free of

> blockages on X-rays, doctors are reporting.

>

> The condition, which may affect three million American women, greatly

> increases the risk of a heart attack. Its main symptom is chest pain

or discomfort.

> In many women, the pain occurs but nothing shows up on an angiogram,

a test in

> which dye is injected into the coronary arteries and they are

X-rayed in a

> search for blockages, so doctors conclude that no treatment is needed.

>

> But patients may then go on to have heart attacks or develop heart

failure, a

> weakening of the heart muscle that can be debilitating and

ultimately fatal.

>

> " When there are no blockages, everybody slacks off, including the

patient,

> and we don't want to do that, " said Dr. Sopko of the National

Heart, Lung

> and Blood Institute. Such patients almost certainly need treatment,

he said.

>

> The best way for a woman to find out whether she has the artery

disease is to

> undergo tests, including certain type of stress tests, that measure

blood

> flow to the heart. But not everyone needs to be tested; women with

symptoms, a

> family history of heart disease or severe risk factors may be

candidates.

>

> The findings are among those in a series of articles to be published

today in

> two medical journals †" the Journal of the American College of

Cardiology, and

> Circulation †" exploring the differences in heart disease between

men and

> women. The subject has drawn increasing interest in recent decades,

as scientists

> began to realize that the results of previous studies, done mostly

in men, did

> not always apply to women.

>

> Among the differences already known are that women with heart

disease tend to

> be sicker than men by the time it is diagnosed, to benefit less from

bypass

> surgery and to have more severe symptoms when they develop heart

failure. Some

> of the difference is because women are older and frailer when they

develop

> heart disease, but that does not account for all of it.

>

> Symptoms of heart attack also tend to differ. Men report crushing

pain in the

> chest, while women are more likely to feel dizzy, sick, short of

breath and

> sweaty.

>

> Heart disease, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases are the

leading

> causes of death in the United States and other developed countries.

They killed

> 910,600 people in the United States in 2003, the most recent year

for which data

> are available; more than half the deaths, 484,000, were among women.

>

> Although women's risk is greatest after menopause (

>

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/meno\

pause/index.html?inline=

> nyt-classifier ) and increases with age, heart disease is the No. 1

cause of

> death in all women older than 25. Overall death rates from coronary

disease

> have declined in the past few decades, but most of the improvements

have been in

> men's rates.

>

> The cause of the hidden disease being described today is a diffuse

buildup of

> fatty deposits inside the walls of the coronary arteries and in the

very

> small arteries in the heart. The deposits, or plaques, do not show

up as blockages

> on X-rays, but they still interfere with blood flow and can damage

the heart

> muscle, causing ischemic heart disease. ( " Ischemia " means

" inadequate blood

> flow. " )

>

> But often the condition is not recognized, and the women are told

they have

> nothing to worry about. Instead, Dr. Sopko said, they should be treated

> aggressively for other problems that lead to artery disease like

high cholesterol,

> high blood pressure and diabetes. If necessary, he added, they

should also be

> advised to quit smoking, lose weight and exercise more.

>

> The researchers report that compared to a nonsmoker, a woman who

smokes has a

> risk of dying from heart disease equal to the risk she would have if

she

> weighed 90 pounds more than the nonsmoker.

>

> " To women as patients, the message is, look, if you have symptoms,

don't

> think because you are a woman you are immune to having a heart

problem, " Dr. Sopko

> said.

>

> The findings are based on a government-sponsored study called Wise, for

> Women's Ischemia Syndrome Evaluation. Begun in 1996, it included 936

women who had

> symptoms that led doctors to order angiograms. The women's average

age was

> about 58, but a quarter were young enough to be premenopausal.

>

> Despite their symptoms, only a third of the group had obvious

blockages in

> their coronary arteries. In a similar group of men, three-quarters

or more would

> have a severe blockage, said Dr. Carl J. Pepine, the chief of

cardiovascular

> medicine at the University of Florida in Gainesville and one of the

lead

> investigators in the Wise study.

>

> In the remaining two-thirds of the women †" that is, those without

blockages †"

> more than half had abnormalities in their arteries, like an

inability to

> dilate when needed, that could cause ischemia, Dr. Pepine said. The

abnormalities

> occurred in both the coronary arteries and smaller ones that feed

the heart,

> a network of tiny vessels called the microvasculature.

>

> Tests showed that the artery walls were full of plaque but had grown

outward

> to accommodate it, so that the opening appeared normal. But,

eventually, the

> condition may progress enough to start pinching the artery shut, Dr.

Pepine

> said.

>

> After four years, the rate of deaths or heart attacks in the group

without

> blockages was 10 percent.

>

> " That's much too high for somebody with a normal coronary

angiogram, " Dr.

> Pepine said.

>

> It is not clear why women seem more prone to the hidden vascular

disease, the

> researchers said, though it may be linked to hormonal imbalances and a

> greater tendency to suffer from inflammation, which plays a role in

artery disease.

>

>

>

>