subject: Menopause And Your Heart - Tips For Getting Help [print this page] There are many symptoms of menopause, some fairly harmless and others outright annoying. However some conditions brought about by the decrease of female hormones can cause other medical conditions that can have serious consequences to your health, so take note. One of them involves your heart.
As you probably know, the cardiovascular system is the system of arteries and veins that keep blood pumping throughout your body on a constant basis. The main pump, your heart, is critical to this function and must be healthy for you to remain alive. So of course anything that affects your cardiovascular system is pretty important, right? How does approaching menopause concern your hearth health then?
For one, estrogen (and its active form, Estradiol) helps to keep the cardiovascular system healthy in many ways. First of all, it helps keeps blood pressure in check by keeping vessels dilated properly. Estradiol also helps to keep cholesterol in check by lowering the bad cholesterol and raising the good. It also help to keep the blood from clotting, and even acts as an antioxidant to keep fatty deposits from sticking to the walls of your arteries.
Before the age of about 50, it is more common for men to have heart disease than women. However, once women start to approach menopause this quickly changes. Although heart disease in women does tend to occur a bit later in life, it is just as devastating to their health. After 50 most women see a decrease in hormones, most importantly Estradiol which is the active form of estrogen. This causes a slow decline in cardiovascular health for many women, and if not caught soon enough has dire consequences.
Of course there are other factors that effect heart health, such as diet and exercise, heredity, smoking cigarettes, and alcohol consumption. Diet alone can affect your cholesterol very adversely, so a diet low in fat is necessary to keep this in check. As women become affected by lower Estradiol in the bloodstream, they can start to have higher bad cholesterol levels so this should be checked on a regular basis by your doctor. If you tend to have many of the habits that already lead to an unhealthy heart, you should certainly try to reverse this trend as you get older. Its never too late to start taking care of your heart!
Unfortunately, heart disease is presented differently in women than men. They dont tend to have the severe chest pains that can warn of a heart problem early on, although when they have angina (chest pain due to heart problems) it is often passed off as something else less serious. In addition to angina, other symptoms of heart problems can be: back pain, shortness of breath, fatigue, jaw pain, sweating, and even heartburn or abdominal pain. If you are a woman and experience any of these symptoms, even if you are resting, take note of it and contact your doctor. Diagnosing cardiovascular problems early is the key to staying healthy and avoiding a heart attack.
