5 questions for women to ask their doctors about their heart
Dr Nikki Stamp writes: International Women’s Day began with a movement to get women the vote and has broadened over time to empower women in all areas of life, including health.
Being empowered to take care of your own health is so important. When you're empowered in your health it allows you to have stronger relationships with your health care providers. This all all helps to lead to better health care outcomes.
Why do women need to think about their hearts
For women, health empowerment is very important because even today, there are areas where women’s health falls short. Heart health is one of them.
Women in Australia are three times as likely to die of heart disease than breast cancer and sadly, heart disease in women is under-diagnosed and under-treated.
Here are the five questions I recommend for women to ask their doctors when it comes to heart health.
1. What’s my blood pressure?
Blood pressure is a measure of the pressure inside your arteries. The reason blood pressure is important is that when it gets high, the extra pressure can cause damage to the arteries and predispose you to conditions like heart attacks and strokes. High blood pressure is very common, and it can have no symptoms which can make it tricky to find.
Women often get their blood pressure checked from very early in life when getting their contraception (the pill can increase blood pressure) or during pregnancy. However, outside of these times, you may not find a reason to have it checked. Measuring blood pressure is quick, easy and painless so next time you have the opportunity, get your pressure checked every two years.
2. What is cholesterol and should I worry about it?
Cholesterol gets a lot of attention - cholesterol is a type of lipid, like a cousin of fat. Cholesterol is a normal part of the body that we make ourselves, however, when we have too much of it, it can cause damage to the blood vessels. Too much cholesterol can causes plaque to build up and these plaques block our arteries.
A bit like blood pressure, high cholesterol won’t necessarily give you any signs or symptoms so it’s well worth discussing checking with your doctor. After the age of 45, getting your cholesterol checked at least every five years is an important health check to do.
3. Should I check my blood sugar?
Your body’s sugar levels in the blood are controlled very tightly by a hormone called insulin. When insulin doesn’t do its job, the glucose in your bloodstream floats around instead of being stored away safely, a condition called diabetes. Diabetes can cause a number of conditions like heart attacks, eye issues and blockages of the blood vessels of the legs.
Women are checked for diabetes when they’re pregnant but outside of this time, you need to discuss with your doctor if getting your blood sugar test with a simple blood test is worthwhile.
If someone has some risk factors, such as having a family history of diabetes, a quick blood test may be worthwhile.
4. Heart disease runs in my family - what should I be looking out for?
Our genes impact our risk for heart problems, so if we have a family member who has had heart disease, especially if they had heart problems relatively young (in their 50s or younger), we may need to be more vigilant about our hearts.
This can include paying extra attention to reducing our risks, like exercising regularly and eating a heart-healthy diet.
But it is also something you should chat to your doctor about because it may be a good idea to start doing a heart health check sooner than usual.
5. What’s a heart health check and do I need one?
A heart health check is designed to pick up any heart troubles or risks for heart disease down the track. It’s done with your GP and involves a chat about your lifestyle (diet, exercise and smoking), your family history and then some simple tests to check your blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar.
Most importantly, based on the results of your heart health check, your doctor can discuss the results and let you know if there’s anything you can do to improve your risk.
How to look out for the women in your life
One of the most difficult things about heart disease is that not enough women know that it is something they need to be thinking about. And as we’ve already discussed, knowledge is empowering!
So on this International Women’s Day, help three women you know to make informed choices about their health, and how they can protect their hearts.
Reviewed by the healthylife Advisory Board March 2022