The choices are ovarian cancer, breast cancer and heart disease. The question is, which disease is the number one killer among women?

 

If you guessed heart disease then you guessed right. Coronary disease is the number one cause of death for American women. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one in three women dies of heart disease. It also strikes at younger ages than most people think, and the risk rises in middle age. And, two-thirds of the women who have heart attacks never fully recover.

 

With so many lives at risk, you may wonder why we haven't heard more about how heart disease affects women in America. You are not alone. Recent research indicates that many women don't even know the most common risk factors associated with heart disease – smoking, physical inactivity, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, family history and being overweight. These are our wives, mothers, grandmothers and sisters. We are losing them, in part, because less than one-third of American women recognize that heart disease truly is the leading cause of death among women.

 

The need to increase awareness about this silent and deadly killer was recently demonstrated by First Lady Laura Bush. When discussing women and health issues at an American Heart Association lunch, she pointedly asked "What would you do if your spouse or a loved one went for an annual check up and was diagnosed with high cholesterol and a risk for heart disease? You would probably go to the library and check out every book on the subject. Then you might go to the grocery store and buy all the fruits and vegetables you could find to help him eat a more healthful diet. But if a friend tells us that heart disease is the number one killer of women in America and that we need to get a check up, we dismiss it and say, ‘I'll try to go when I have time.'"

 

The time is now. Beginning in February, the American Heart Association, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, and the National Institutes of Health joined forces to launch "The Heart Truth." The Heart Truth is a national awareness campaign to give women a personal and urgent wake-up call about the risk of heart disease.

 

The campaign is especially aimed at women ages 40 to 60 -- the time when a woman's risk of heart disease starts to rise. But its messages are also important for younger women, since heart disease develops gradually and can start at a young age—even in the teenage years. Older women have an interest too—it's never too late to take action to prevent and control the risk factors for heart disease. Most of all, the message of the campaign impresses upon every age group that exercise, healthy eating, preventative medicine and education can improve heart health and quality of life.

 

To learn more about heart disease and how it can affect your life, log on to the internet and find out about what to ask your doctor (www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/hearttruth/lower/askdoctor.htm) about your heart health or call 1-800-575-WELL to receive a brochure on heart disease. You can also gain insight about factors that increase the risks for developing heart disease by taking a risk assessment quiz (www.nhlbi.nih.gov). It will just take a few minutes and when it comes to your health or the health of someone you love, it really is a quiz that can save a life.