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Pharmacy Links

THE DANGERS FOR WOMEN WHO CONTINUE TO SMOKE

April 2, 2009

The bad news is that women are continuing to smoke, and younger women are taking it up more readily than did their mothers at the same age. Approximately 40 percent of teenage girls, but only 30 percent of teenage boys, are reported to be smokers.

For women who smoke, the facts are simple:

• Premenopausal smokers have three times the heart attack rate of their nonsmoker colleagues.

• Women smoking more than forty cigarettes a day increase their heart attack risk by twenty fold.

• Combining smoking with diabetes hugely increases the heart attack risk in women, well above that in similar men.

• Oral contraceptive users who smoke heavily increase their risk of thrombosis in the pelvis, legs, and brain. The risk rises very steeply from their mid-thirties onwards.

Surgery for Women with Angina

Women with angina who are offered a coronary artery bypass operation should accept the chance. Even though they tend naturally to have narrower coronary arteries than men, the results of bypass grafts in women and men are equally good. Women with angina who have never had a heart attack do even better after bypass surgery than similar men.

So go for it! Your doctors have been alerted to the fact that you have had a raw deal and need to be treated more vigorously.

For your own part, recognize that you are at risk by not ignoring that pain in your chest. Do not smoke—at all. Have regular health checks. If you have high blood pressure and /or diabetes, be meticulous about their control. And try to keep to a normal weight—not overweight, but not too thin, either. Finally, if you are menopausal or older, do consider HRT It could do your heart a lot of good.