Ladies, Put on That Red Dress - and Tell Your Men to Wear One Too!
By Robynn Rutledge
May 24, 2004
Page 3 of 3
Not only does heart disease not discriminate in gender, it can affect women of all ages. Since heart disease is a progressive disease, young women must be just as aware and alert to preventive measures as older women. The Heart Truth targets women 40 to 60 years of age as that is the time when women's risks for heart disease begin to increase.
Understanding and then preventing or controlling the risk factors can greatly reduce a woman's risk of developing heart disease. However, there are some risk factors that a woman simply cannot mitigate such as family history and age. Other risk factors include smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, being overweight or obese, diabetes and physical inactivity. Specifically, high blood pressure is referred to as a silent killer as there are generally no symptoms of it. Therefore, it is important to be vigilant and monitor for the risk factors.
With each risk factor, your chance of developing heart disease increases. For example, if you have two risk factors, your risk of incurring heart disease is doubled. With three risk factors, the risk triples, and so on. Therefore, you should work diligently to eliminate the risks you can control or influence (such as smoking) since there are risks that you cannot affect (such as family history or age).
One way The Heart Truth is seeking to educate women is by using their flair for fashion. The red dress is the symbol of women and heart disease. The First Lady spoke at the red dress fashion show in New York, donating one of her own red dresses to join those of major fashion designers in The Heart Truth Road Show. This is the traveling display of red dresses whose 'ulterior' motive is to increase awareness for women and heart disease.
Additionally, NHLBI has a red dress pin that can be worn to symbolize this effort and help you to educate and make others aware of this misunderstood disease. Even men can wear a red dress!
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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA. >> Back -- Page 1 2 3
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