National Wear Red Day

Tomorrow is “National Wear Red Day”.

image It’s designated as a day to bring awareness to women and men that heart disease is the number one killer of women. We fear breast cancer more but there is a greater survival rate with it than there is with heart disease. The campaign to make women aware of early detection of breast cancer has greatly increase the survival rate over the years. Being a breast cancer survivor myself, I appreciate the advances in detection and treatment that has made this possible. Now it’s time to bring heart disease out into the open!

Back in 1978 my father had a heart attack which he survived due to experimental treatment at a great hospital. Through his experience the whole family learned to embrace the medical community’s advise on how to prevent a future heart attack for him and for anyone in the family. We learned how important exercise was. We changed our diets. We found out how heart disease can run in families and the best way to reduce our risks was to following the lifestyle changes recommended by the Heart Association. My father never had another heart attack. Unfortunately he died 7 years later from pancreatic cancer.

Since that time my family has been aware of how to live a healthy lifestyle to prevent heart disease. But many women still believe it is a man’s disease, not a woman’s. This can be a deadly belief. We have reduce the number of deaths due to breast cancer, now it’s time to reduce the number of deaths for women due to heart disease.

Lifestyle changes can reduce your risk of heart disease. Visit your doctor and discuss what your risks are and what you can do to lower them. You may need to take medications in addition to lifestyle changes but your life is worth it.

Becoming aware of signs of a heart attack in women is also important to know. Many times they are very different and more subtle than the signs for men. Learn more from this government website National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.

The Tools on this site have lots of information you can download to help you reduce your risk and the risk of everyone you know. Wear RED this Friday and spread the word to your family, co-workers, neighbors, and friends on how to reduce heart disease. You may just help save their life or your own.

Janice

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