Heart Healthy
September 29, 2012 by admin
Filed under Exercise Tips
Article by Susun Weed
Heart Healthy – Health
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copyright Susun S. Weed
Excerpt from: New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way, Alternative Approaches for Women 30-90 by Susun S. Weed”Open your heart to me, my own,” whispers Grandmother Growth so softly you aren’t certain you hear her. “Open the wisdom way of compassion here in your heart and draw me inside. Let Grandmother Growth be inside you, helping you encompass the whole, in the beat of your own heart, my heart, Crone’s heart.”
Step 0: Do Nothing
Thinking of taking hormone replacement to keep your heart healthy? Think again. Data released in April of the year 2000, from the federal government’s Women’s Health Initiative, showed “a small increase in the number of heart attacks, strokes and blood clots in the lungs of women on hormone replacement compared with women on placebo.” The Heart and Estrogen/Progestin Replacement Study (HERS), completed in 1998, found the same connection. For a healthy heart, don’t take hormones.
“Recently released data from the federal government’s Women’s Health Initiative suggests that during the first two years of postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy there is a slightly greater risk of heart attack, stroke and blood clots.”
Heart disease is America’s top killer (claiming a life every 34 seconds). Women aged 30-50 have far less risk of heart disease than a man their age. But postmenopausal women die from heart disease at rates as high as men’s. (Women account for 51 percent of all cardiovascular deaths; men, 49 percent.) Is it lack of estrogen?
No. Estrogen does lower LDL cholesterol and increase HDL cholesterol, but cholesterol is only weakly linked to heart disease, especially in women. (Most heart attacks happen to people with normal cholesterol levels.)
Estrogen raises blood pressure (one of the top three reasons for heart attacks in women), increases triglycerides, promotes clotting (a leading factor in heart attacks and strokes), and raises levels of C-reactive protein (a marker for inflammation associated with heart disease). Take progestins/progesterone too and you increase your risk of heart disease even more. Hormone replacement really isn’t heart healthy.
Aren’t there studies linking estrogen usage to lowered risk of heart disease? Only retrospective ones, which cannot establish a cause-and-effect link. And the women in those studies ate well, exercised regularly, and were unlikely to smoke – behaviors that are critical to heart health. The simple truth is more than 90 percent of all heart disease is preventable with lifestyle choices.
The three top risk factors for heart disease in women are too much belly fat, smoking, and untreated hypertension. High cholesterol is one of the top three risk factors for men, but not for women. (This is because, after menopause, we make heart healthy hormones from our cholesterol.)
Step 1: Collect Information
The Nurses Health Study – which followed 86,000 women for 14 years – shows what happens to those wise old Crones who follow heart healthy behaviors:
