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Heart Disease
HOST V.O.
Fifty-one year-old Rosa Gonzalez likes to spend time in the garden of her south Miami home. It's a departure from the stress of her job as a sales rep for bell south. Over time, Rosa would begin to see this stress take its toll.
Rosa Gonzalez, Patient
"... I was having chest pains... chest pains, that I thought I was going to die. You know, there's a lot of pressure on my chest, my heart was going two hundred miles an hour, I felt faint and nauseated,..."
HOST V.O.
Dr. Cristie Ballantyne is the director at the center for cardiovascular disease at Baylor College of Medicine.
Dr. Christie Ballantyne, Director for the Center of cardiovascular disease, Baylor College of Medicine
"...well, cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of pain, suffering and death in our society. Actually there's more women who die from cardiovascular disease than men did last year."
HOST V.O.
Dr. Deborah Smith is an ob-gyn in the Washington, D.C. area, and has worked to clear up the popular misconceptions about women and heart disease.
Deborah Smith, MD
"Only about 10 to 20% of women correctly identify heart disease or cardiovascular disease as a major threat to health. And indeed it is the leading cause of mortality, the leading cause of death."
HOST V.O.
In fact, one out of every two women will die from a cardiovascular related disease. But only one in twenty-eight women will lose their life to breast cancer.
HOST V.O.
Martha Price, who's also from Miami, is a sixty five year old, retired school teacher. When she found out she had coronary artery disease, it came as a diagnosis out of the blue.
MARTHA PRICE, PATIENT
"The reason I found out about my heart condition was my children had asked my husband and I that we need to go get a stress test because they were concerned about our health."
MARTHA PRICE, PATIENT
"I didn't have any problems at all. I was very surprised about it... and had no symptoms at all, no shortness of breath."
HOST V.O. 6 Sec.
But what Martha did have were blockages in five coronary arteries.
HOST V.O. 10 Sec.
Dr. Jonathan Fialkow is a cardiologist at the Cardiovascular Center of South Florida... where nearly 50% of their cardiac patients are women.
Dr. Jonathan Fialkow
"Mrs. Price was an interesting case, unfortunately something we see all too often."
Dr. Jonathan Fialkow
"Her cholesterol was sky high... her LDL cholesterol which should be at most 100 preferably in the 80 to 90 range for aggressive care, was somewhere about 175."
Dr. Christie Ballantyne
"...unfortunately we are getting heavier, getting less exercise, diets are bad, their smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes... and these factors cause disease in women just like they do with men..."
HOST V.O. 16 SEC.
Women are often lulled into a false sense of security because they don't typically have the same warning signs as men, such as chest pain, or numbness in the left arm. Women may instead experience fatigue, back pain, and nausea, among other symptoms.
Cardio-Nurse
"Take long strides, I want you all they way to the front. There you go."
HOST V.O. 5 Sec.
But some women do have classic symptoms, like Rosa Gonzalez.
Rosa Gonzalez, Patient
"...I started having the pressure again and the pain, so he asked me to come in right away and he did an electrocardiogram ... and he said that there was some variations that he didn't like, and he wanted to do a catheterization.
Rosa Gonzalez, Patient
"... I'm a little scared of going through the procedure..."
Dr. Alvaro Gomez
"OK Rosa, we're ready to get started ok?."
HOST V.O. 5 Sec.
Catheters enter Rosa's body through the groin, and travel to the heart.
Dr. Alvaro Gomez
"...we inject iodine into the coronary arteries so we can look at the arteries on the x-ray screen, and we take several different shots at different angles so no angle from the coronary escapes us.
HOST V.O. 13 Sec.
For many women, a heart catheter can uncover blocked arteries, where open-heart surgery might be needed. Women face twice the risk of death following heart surgery than men.
Dr. Alvaro Gomez
" Hi Rosa, Rosa how are you doing everything went well huh? So we have excellent news... the arteries are entirely normal there's nothing wrong, (references daughter) her heart is entirely normal."
HOST V.O. 18 Sec.
Along with having risk factors such as being overweight, and having high blood pressure... Rosa also had classic cardiovascular symptoms like chest pains. What she didn't have as it turns out, was heart disease. Still, her risk factors needed to be managed and monitored.
Dr. Alvaro Gomez
"Rosa is a typical example of the cardiac patient, the female cardiac patient we need to be more aggressive on. She's a middle-aged woman, ... and she has a bit of obesity, she has high blood pressure, and she has been complaining lately of chest discomfort."
Dr. Alvaro Gomez
"So therefore her symptoms, now we can rest assured are not coming from the heart, are probably coming from her GI track from her stomach or any part of her intestine in that area. But they're not coming from her heart and this is very reassuring for the patient, her family, and for treating physicians."
HOST V.O. 10 Sec.
For Martha Price, a complete change in her lifestyle was in order. Dr. Fialkow reviews footage of one her five clogged arteries after the angioplasties.
Dr. Jonathan Fialkow
"This was, this was the artery before... and this is the artery after."
Martha Price
"That was my first stress test ever... and I'm very happy that I did. And I'm sure it saved my life."
HOST ON CAMERA TAG
Many women are at twice the risk for heart disease after menopause, than before. So heart disease counseling and lipid screening should be part of every post-menopausal well woman exam. And women who are 45 and older but pre-menopausal should have their cholesterol and other lipids checked at least once every five years.
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