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Heart Songs
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Meet three women who are handling cardiovascular disease with grace and courage
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By Stacey Colino
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REMEDY Spring 2008
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 About 80 million adults in the United States have cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death in the country, according to the American Heart Association.
While you can’t reduce the risk that comes along with age or having a strong family history of heart disease, there is a lot you can do to mitigate other risk factors, which include smoking, being overweight or sedentary and having high blood pressure, diabetes or cholesterol abnormalities.
“If we’re on top of our cardiovascular risk factors, we can prevent the majority of heart attacks and strokes,” says Tracy L. Stevens, M.D., professor of medicine at the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Medicine and director of the Saint Luke’s Muriel I. Kauffman Women’s Heart Center.
It’s never too late to start, but the sooner you do, the better for your ticker. To help you accomplish your heart-healthy (or -healthier) goals, the American Heart Association has established the MyStart! online program. It offers tools designed by leading exercise professionals, nutritionists and dietitians to motivate you and to give you a place to log your daily activities and food intake. You also receive weekly email summaries of your exercise and diet accomplishments.
To provide further inspiration, we’re introducing you to three women who battled heart disease; their stories can help teach you how to combat it, too.
 The American Heart Association offers the following statistics:
- 1.2 million Americans will have a first or recurrent heart attack this year.
- 7.9 million of those 20-plus have survived a heart attack.
- 72 million have high blood pressure.
- 700,000 will suffer a first or recurrent stroke this year; about 150,000 of them will die.
- Women account for 60 percent of stroke-related deaths.
- Almost 9 million have angina (chest pain due to reduced blood supply to the heart.)
- About 37 million have a cholesterol level above 240, at which point it is a major risk factor for coronary disease or stroke.
- Less than a third of adults get 30 minutes of light or moderate exercise five days a week.
- Two thirds of those 20-plus are overweight or obese.
An adoptee, Karen Merrill knew nothing about her health history for most of her life. When she met her five natural siblings, she learned that she was predisposed to high cholesterol and that, at 32, her birth mother had had a heart attack.
In August 2002, Merrill felt a horrible, crunching sensation in her chest, pain in her jaw and tingling up her arms. Doctors discovered a major blockage in her right coronary artery. By February 2003, the stents they’d put in had clogged up. The Barrington, NH, resident had to undergo open-heart surgery. Later, she decided to have her daughter’s cholesterol tested, even though 8-year-old Ginny was physically active and her weight was normal. The lab found a level of 275 mg/dL. Under Merrill’s watchful eye, her daughter’s cholesterol gradually dropped to around 160. “I think [most] people don’t get that high cholesterol probably starts in the womb. It was in my blood,” says Merrill, 51. “I will always have heart disease, but my situation is manageable. Now I want to help prevent my daughter from going through what I have.”
More than 48 percent of adults in the U.S. have high cholesterol (200
mg/dL and higher). Yet women are significantly less likely to keep
their LDL (bad cholesterol) at recommended levels, according to a
recent study by the National Committee for Quality Assurance.
To improve your levels, eat a diet that is low in cholesterol,
saturated fat and trans fats and is high in fruits, vegetables, whole
grains and high-fiber foods. Exercise regularly and lose excess weight.
If lifestyle changes can’t get cholesterol under control, medications
such as statins, fibrates or niacin supplements may be warranted. The
good news: Lowering your total cholesterol by 10 percent may mean a 30 percent drop in your risk of developing heart disease.
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In the summer of 2005, Neita Wiese hadn’t been feeling quite right. But the fatigue and shortness of breath she’d been experiencing were subtle enough that they barely registered. “I attributed my symptoms to stress, because I’d started a new job as a real estate agent and my mother was quite ill,” says Wiese, now 51, of Charleston, SC. She certainly didn’t think it could be anything serious. She ate a healthy diet. She wasn’t overweight, and she exercised nearly every day. Plus, she had quit smoking five years earlier.
But on June 23, shortly after arriving at work, Wiese felt exhausted; soon, she was sweating profusely and experiencing what felt like indigestion.
“I realized I was having a heart attack and asked the receptionist to call 911,” she says. “Four minutes later, the pain on both sides of my chest made me feel like I was in the center of a vise grip, with someone turning the screws tighter and tighter. I started vomiting.”
Fortunately, the ambulance arrived quickly. Although Wiese’s heart flatlined three times on the way to the hospital, the EMTs were able to revive her. Diagnosed with a complete blockage in her left descending artery, she was hospitalized for a week. Doctors inserted a stent and put her on three medications—an antiplatelet drug (to prevent blood clots), a statin and a beta-blocker.
That heart attack was a wake-up call: She took a long look at her lifestyle, then revamped it. “I’m a type-A personality, and I used to always have 15 things going at once,” says Wiese, who quit her job and launched a line of heart-healthy vinaigrettes and marinades. “I’ve had to learn to be more patient,” she points out.
Nowadays, she carves out plenty of time to be physically active, get lots of sleep and rest, eat a healthy diet and be with family and friends; all of these things, she says, are what’s “most important in life.”
To reduce stress, Weise also chooses her commitments carefully. “I am extremely lucky that I was able to walk away from this health crisis with minimal heart damage—considering I was dead three times,” she says. “The way I see it, I’m on bonus time, and I just want to make sure I make the most of it.”
New challenges arise after a heart attack. For one, “if you’ve already had a heart attack, your LDL target is under 70 mg/dL,” Dr. Stevens says. “Many people need a statin, which lowers cholesterol and reduces inflammation, to get there.”
 Also beneficial in preventing future heart problems: low-dose aspirin, which prevents clots and reduces inflammation in the blood vessels; beta-blockers, which lower blood pressure and heart rate; and omega-3 fatty acid capsules, which help control cholesterol and reduce inflammation. Drugs may also be needed to adequately control high blood pressure and diabetes. Lifestyle modifications are essential as well. Sticking with a heart-healthy diet is a must; so is exercise for cardiac rehabilitation. These days, heart-attack survivors are often advised to join a formal cardiac-rehab program, which addresses everything from how to exercise and improve your diet to what symptoms to watch for and how to help yourself heal physically and emotionally.
In 2001, a fasting blood glucose test showed that Jennifer Robertson’s blood sugar was well above the cutoff for a diagnosis of diabetes. “There’s diabetes on my mother’s side of the family,” says Robertson, 50, a mother of two who works for the Louisiana Spirit Hurricane Recovery program in Shreveport, LA. “I was overweight. I had poor eating habits—I liked comfort food, like chocolate peanut-butter cups—and I wasn’t physically active.” Her physician put her on an oral medication (metformin) to control her blood sugar and an ACE inhibitor to lower her blood pressure. She also changed her diet to include more vegetables and fewer sweets. “I found foods that satisfied my taste buds but were better for me, like a fat-free vanilla frozen yogurt that tastes just like homemade vanilla ice cream,” Robertson says. “Because I’m choosing things I enjoy, I don’t feel deprived.” She also started taking a 45-minute walk each morning. Not only has she dropped 30 pounds, but her blood sugar and blood pressure are now in the normal range.
People with diabetes are two to four times more likely to die of heart
disease than those who don’t have it. In fact, two thirds of people
with diabetes die from some form of heart disease or stroke. Even more
shocking: Nearly 21 million people in the U.S. have diabetes, but
almost a third don’t know it. How to reduce your risk? Lose excess
weight, get regular, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and eat a
diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and high-fiber
foods—and low in sodium, saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol. |
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