Women's heart disease awareness... what about men?

I learned today of National Wear Red Day, meant to show support for women's heart disease awareness.


I cannot find a comparable "men's heart disease awareness" movement -- is there just cause for such gender discrimination?

The National Organization of Restoring Men is a non-profit support group for men who have concerns about being circumcised, are considering foreskin restoration, or are in the process of restoring their foreskins. Our aim is to help men regain a sense of self-directedness -- physically as well as emotionally.

I cannot find a comparable "men's heart disease awareness" movement -- is there just cause for such gender discrimination?

There are organizations such as YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) as opposed to the YWCA.

Presumably awareness of male heart disease is abundant and reflects the risk. Presumably the risk of women getting haert disease is higher than woman are aware. If so such an organisation is wholly neccesary.

By the same note why would you need a "National organisation for whites/men" as Russ puts it?

What role does testosterone play?



Just how important is testosterone for preventing heart disease in men?



Just 20 years ago, this question wouldn't have even been asked. Traditional teaching was that, because men develop heart disease earlier than females (by 10 years), testosterone must therefore cause heart disease.

The whole point of this thread is that I don't want to presume... I want to know. I feel inspired to have an opinion on the topic, and I'm going to make darned sure I adhere to my own standards for such things.

Unfortunately, most women don't know The Heart Truth. Although significant progress has been made increasing awareness among women—from 34 percent in 2000 to 57 percent in 2006—most women fail to make the connection between risk factors and their personal risk of developing heart disease.

The Heart Truth is that women don't take their risk of heart disease seriously—or personally. Women often fail to make the connection between risk factors, such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and their own chance of developing heart disease.

The whole point of this thread is that I don't want to presume... I want to know. I feel inspired to have an opinion on the topic, and I'm going to make darned sure I adhere to my own standards for such things.

CARDIOVASCULAR disease (CVD) is the leading cause of disability and death in both men and women in the United States.1-2 Annually, CVD accounts for about $274 billion in direct health costs and indirect costs, including lost productivity, and for more than 505,000 deaths among women in the United States alone.1 In contrast, the average annual number of deaths from all cancers for women in the United States is 265,900, including 43,300 deaths from breast cancer.3 Surveys of women in the United States have found that their perception of the effect of CVD is not in agreement with the severity of the known consequences of CVD on morbidity and mortality.4-5 Lack of awareness of the risk of CVD may impede preventive efforts as well as the adoption of positive lifestyle changes.

The National Council on Aging (Washington, DC) recently reported that only 9% of women between the ages of 45 and 64 years said that the condition they most feared was heart disease; this is in contrast to 61% of these women who reported that they most feared breast cancer.4 In 1995, Pilote and Hlatky5 reported results from a random survey of 337 women, aged 48 to 52 years, who graduated from Stanford University between 1967 and 1971. The authors noted that 73% of the respondents perceived that their risk of developing heart disease by age 70 years was less than 1%, and twice as many women reported being worried about breast cancer (59%) as heart disease (29%). Other surveys have also indicated that many women are unaware that they have symptoms of early heart disease or that they possess risk factors for developing CVD.6-8 Legato et al9 reported that 44% of women in the United States surveyed believed that it was somewhat or very unlikely that they would suffer a heart attack, and 58% believed they were as likely or more likely to die of breast cancer than heart disease; yet 74% of these women rated themselves as fairly or very knowledgeable. Of those women who saw a physician regularly, 59% reported that their physician never spoke to them about heart disease, including 44% of women 60 years or older. Few of these studies have examined these issues in diverse populations of women, and these studies have not extensively evaluated knowledge about CVD risk factors and prevention practices.

The objective of this study was to assess perceptions of heart disease and how it affects women, and the current level of knowledge of risk factors and warning signs for heart disease and stroke in a diverse, random sample of women in the United States. The perceived role of the physician in communicating information about heart disease was also assessed. The survey was commissioned by the American Heart Association (Dallas, Tex) to provide baseline data about current knowledge, awareness, and preventive behaviors related to heart disease and stroke prior to the implementation of a national education campaign on heart disease and stroke in women.
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Our data indicate the need for heart disease and stroke education programs for all women, including programs targeted for older adults (65 years) and younger adults (25-34 years). For this latter group, it is important to emphasize that adopting healthy lifestyle behaviors now can influence their risk for developing long-term disease. Recent data linking fatty streaks to atherosclerotic disease suggest that awareness of CVD risk at a young age may have an effect on the rate of disease development in the subsequent 20 to 40 years.17 Our findings support the continued use of education programs and materials that are also targeted to specific ethnic groups to close the gap between women's perceptions of heart disease risk and reality. It is also clear that physicians need to do a better job of providing health information to their female patients.

To address the issues raised in this survey, the American Heart Association initiated the National Women's Heart Disease and Stroke Campaign for the promotion of cardiovascular disease prevention and self-empowerment of women. The campaign consists of multiple components, including a national media campaign, educational materials and conferences, programs that address behavior change, and ongoing grassroots initiatives. The campaign was designed to increase public awareness and knowledge about heart disease and stroke. It was also designed to enable women to lower their risk for developing these diseases through improved lifestyle and better prevention practices.

DESPITE DECLINING mortality over the last few decades, cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality for both men and women in the United States.1 Unfortunately, a common misconception is that heart disease is a "man's disease," when in fact, more women than men died of CVD in 1996.2 In this issue of the ARCHIVES, Mosca et al3 address a very important component of effective CVD prevention by examining knowledge and perception of heart disease risk among US women. This article provides an important evaluation of the effectiveness of our ongoing patient and community health education efforts in disseminating knowledge of CVD. Effective health education efforts are an important first step in prevention strategies to further reduce the CVD burden in US women.

According to their results, more women perceive cancer (particularly breast cancer), not CVD, to be a more significant health concern for women.3 Certainly cancer is a major health problem for women; however, approximately 1 of every 26 women can expect to die of breast cancer, while 1 of every 2 women can expect to die of CVD.