Let’s add Stress Reduction as the 8th step in the American Heart Association’s “Life’s Simple 7”

February is Heart Month!  An entire month dedicated to heart disease awareness in our community.  During this month, we also educate the community on why heart disease is a women’s biggest threat.  After all, heart disease takes more lives than all cancers combined.  Globally, that equates to one woman dying every 80 seconds.  More recently, … Read more

The American Heart and Go Red for Women Month!

It is February: The American Heart and Go Red for Women Month! February has just started with all its excitement and optimistic thoughts!! I would like to talk about some of the amazing initiatives, including American Heart Month and Go Red for Women initiatives, that are in place to inspire and encourage more of my … Read more

Anxiety, Food Security, & Beyoncé: Addressing Young Women’s Cardiovascular Health

What can you do to address gender disparities in health and health care? In my last post, I suggested working to identify your own bias by increasing your awareness. I’m walking this path, too. A few years ago, I made a concerted effort to diversity my reading habits after I noticed that a huge percentage … Read more

Women’s History Month: Cardiology Edition

Somehow it’s already March, which means it’s Women’s History Month, so I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some of the many amazing cardiologists and researchers (who also happen to be women) who have shaped our field. Last month, I wrote about the importance of science outreach, especially with regard to promoting science and … Read more

A Short History of Immunosuppressants And The Woman Who Invented Them

I’ve been thinking about the field of experimental transplantation research lately. There has been great research in this area recently, including work in Circulation Research on using nanoparticles to target potent immunosuppressants to key areas to suppress rejection (Bahmani, Uehara et al. 2018). There was also an interesting paper that used an aortic arch transplant … Read more

Highlights of AHA18 – Bridging Lifestyle Medicine with Contemporary Medicine through Science

This year’s annual scientific meeting of the American Heart Association (AHA) held in Chicago, Illinois November 10-12, 2018 was excellent. The abbreviated 3-day meeting received positive feedback as this allowed practicing physicians to attend the meeting over the weekend and be able to return to their practice early in the work week rather than having … Read more

AHA18 Reminded Me We Need to Do More for Women

On the surface, it doesn’t really seem that surprising men and women develop heart disease differently or experience different symptoms for the same types of cardiac episodes. However, even though heart disease is the number one killer of both men and women, women have traditionally been omitted from clinical trials and female animals have either … Read more

Women in the New Lipid Management Guidelines

The American Heart Association‘s annual meeting, Scientific Sessions, remains a Mecca for cardiologists worldwide. Those of us who were unable to attend in person followed the scientific discussions virtually through the Live Streaming option.  This year the much anticipated update to the Lipid Management Guidelines were presented at the meeting.  A focus on women as … Read more

Women’s Heart Disease – The Interdisciplinary Road Ahead

Every 80 seconds a woman dies from a heart attack or stroke. Once thought to be predominantly found in men, coronary heart disease remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality for women in the US and worldwide. There have been significant improvements in cardiovascular mortality in women in the last two decades with narrowing … Read more