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Choose
to Move: Journal #5
Aug. 27, 2002
I thought I was having a heart attack the other day.
For a few minutes, my heart kept fluttering and it took
my breath away. Then, after it stopped, I realized it
was just palpitations.
I’ve experienced palpitations only a few times in my
life, so I was scared by this unfamiliar feeling. I
kept thinking about the heart attack warning signs I
wrote about that very same day.
I also kept thinking, “I’m only 32 years old, I can’t
be having a heart attack.”
But in reality, I know that’s not true. One of my friends
recently told me about a friend of hers who died from
a heart attack at the age of 31. How scary!
It’s especially scary because at the Choose to Move
meeting Wednesday, Diane Butler, a registered nurse
from Blue Cross/Blue Shield, said women are undertreated
when it comes to heart disease. She said women really
need to talk openly with their physicians and they need
to research their ailments and be aggressive with their
questions.
She threw out some interesting facts about women and
heart disease:
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43.3 percent of women die from cardiovascular disease.
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30 percent of women die within the first year of a
heart attack, compared with 25 percent of men.
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Triglicerides play a big role in heart disease, especially
for women. Anything more 190 increases a woman’s risk
for heart disease, whereas anything more than 400
is a risk for men.
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By the year 2003, obesity will become the No. 1 risk
factor for heart disease.
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