Guidelines tailor heart health message to women

Growing awareness that women are at risk for cardiovascular disease is leading to new prevention and intervention strategies.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. Feb. 23, 2004.

First came the red ribbon, an emblem now linked worldwide with AIDS awareness. Then there were pink ribbons that focused attention on another cause: breast cancer research and treatment.

Now, it's time for the red dress -- a symbol designed to raise the specter of heart disease for women and inform them that cardiovascular illness persists as their No. 1 killer.

Red dress pins have been visible everywhere this month -- American Heart Month -- as part of a National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute public education campaign co-sponsored by more than 70 other organizations about the dire risks women face. In fact, one in three women dies of heart disease, and two-thirds of women who have heart attacks never fully recover.

For physicians, though, a reminder came from an additional source: new American Heart Assn. guidelines to help them help female patients protect against such dangers.

Specifically, the guidelines, published in last month's Circulation, urged physicians to assess all female patients for disease risk. Those at high risk should be treated aggressively with ACE inhibitors, beta-blockers, statins, aspirin and blood pressure-lowering medications.

"What we must have is the [physician] as a facilitator of risk reduction to reduce the epidemic of death and disability among women," said Nanette Wenger, MD, author of an accompanying editorial and professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.